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THE   DISEASES  OF  SOCIETY 


FOURTH  EDITION 


THE 

CGLLEGf:  GF  OfL  TUG  P/^Tl"!  i  ^ 


^DISEASES   or  SOCIETY  ^ 


(ri/i?   r/C£  AND   CRIME  PROBLEM) 


G.  FRANK  LYDSTON,  M.D. 


/^  J/'^ 


rKOFKSSOR     or    GENITO-URINASY    SURGKRY,    STATK    UNIVKR8ITT    OF    ILUNOIS  ;     PROnSSOR     OF 

CRIMINAL   ANTHROPOLOGY,  CHICAGO-KENT    COLLEGE  OF   LAW  ;    SURGEON    TO  ST.   MARt's 

AND  SAMARITAN  HOSPITALS  :    MEMBER  OF  THE  LONDON  SOCIETY  OF  AUTHORS,  ETC. 


PHILADELPHIA   AND   LONDON 

J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT   COMPANY 

1900 


ffV3| 


Copyright,  1 904,  by  J.  B.  Lippincott  Company 

Entered  at  Stationers'  Hall,  London 

yill  rights  reser-ved 

Published  .December,  1904 


Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  J.  B.  Lippincott  Company,  Philadelphia,  U.S.A. 


TO 
THOSE  WHO  ARE  FRIENDS  OF 
THE  MAN  BENEATH  IN  THE 
BATTLE  OF  LIFE,  AND  FOES 
OF  THE  CONDITIONS  THAT 
PLACED  HIM  THERE,  THIS  BOOK 
IS  CORDIALLY  INSCRIBED  BY 
THE    AUTHOR 


PREFACE 


Twenty-five  years  ago  I  witnessed  a  legal  murder, — the 
hanging  of  two  unfortunate  youths  condemned  for  an  illegal 
murder.  Neither  was  over  twenty-one  years  of  age.  The 
assassination  was  unprovoked,  unpremeditated,  and  committed  by 
stabbing.  Neither  man  carried  a  weapon,  the  knife  used  being 
taken  from  a  neighboring  butcher-shop  by  the  frenzied  mur- 
derer, who,  following  an  altercation  with  his  victim,  rushed  after 
the  weapon,  returned,  and  killed  him.  Both  of  the  men  impli- 
cated in  the  killing  were  drunk  on  cheap  whiskey — for  the  drink- 
ing of  which  society  itself  was  indirectly  responsible.  They  were 
ignorant  toughs,  bred  in  the  Chicago  stock-yards  district.  For 
their  viciousness  society  was  directly  responsible,  for  it  had  made 
no  effort  to  prevent  them  from  becoming  toughs  and  drunkards. 
The  youths  were  poor  and  almost  friendless.  It  was  impossible 
that  both  could  have  been  guilty ;  one  must  have  been  innocent. 
Each,  however,  accused  the  other  of  the  stabbing.  Society 
said,  "  They  are  of  the  better  dead ;"  the  law  said,  "  Let  no 
guilty  man  escape;"  so  both  were  hanged,  I  was  much  im- 
pressed by  the  judicial  assassination,  and  ever  after  had  a  due 
and  proper  appreciation  of  the  beauties  of  our  penal  system,  and 
more  especially  of  the  occasional  helplessness  and  fickleness  of 
Justice,  of  which  law  is  not  always  an  intelligent  agent. 

Several  years  later  I  served  for  some  time  as  Resident  Sur- 
geon to  the  Blackwell's  Island  Penitentiary,  New  York,  where  I 
had  an  unexampled  opportunity  to  study  the  criminal  and,  in 
some  measure,  the  absurdities  of  our  criminal  law  and  penal 
system.  My  interest  in  the  crime  question  was  thus  excited  early 
in  my  professional  career. 

My  subsequent  work  in  the  field  of  criminal  anthropology  and 
allied  subjects  is  familiar  to  th^  medical  profession,  and  in  a  less 

7 


8  PREFACE 

degree  to  the  legal  profession.  My  first  paper,  "  The  Pathogeny 
of  Vice  and  Crime,"  appeared  in  1883.^  Since  then  have  ap- 
^f  peared  various  essays  on  criminology  and  corelated  subjects 
from  my  pen.  "  Studies  of  Criminal  Crania ;"  -  "  Materialism 
versus  Sentiment  in  the  Study  of  Crime,"  ^ — the  public  address 
before  the  Kentucky  State  Medical  Society  in  1890 ;  "  Sexual 
Crimes  Among  the  Southern  Negroes ;"  *  "  Asexualization  as  a 
Remedy  for  Crime ;"  ^  "  Aberrant  Sexual  Differentiation ;"  ® 
"  Sexual  Perversion  and  Inversion ;"  ^  "  Nordau  and  his 
Critics ;"  ®  and  "  Criminology  in  its  Sociologic  Relations,"  * — ^the 
public  address  before  the  National  Prison  Reform  Association 
in  1895, — are  among  the  more  important  of  these.  My  paper  on 
the  emasculation  of  criminals  as  a  remedy  for  crime  was  one  of 
the  earlier  disquisitions  on  that  subject.  Some  years  since,  a 
chair  of  Criminal  Anthropology  was  tendered  me  by  the  Chi- 
cago-Kent College  of  Law,  affording  the  opportunity  of  promul- 
gating to  excellent  advantage  the  views  set  forth  in  this  volume. 
Some  of  my  published  material  has  been  deliberately  appro- 
priated without  credit  to  the  author,  but  this  has  been  accepted 
as  an  evidence  that  criminology  in  America  is  daily  attracting 
more  and  more  attention.  The  good  work  has  been  going 
steadily  on,  and  I  am  reconciled  to  the  fate  of  some  of  my  labor, 

^  Chicago  Medical  Journal  and  Examiner,  1883.  Papers  on  the  same 
subject  appeared  in  the  Western  Medical  Reporter,  August,  1889,  to 
December,  1889. 

*  Chicago  Medical  Recorder,  May,  1891.  Alienist  and  Neurologist, 
May,  1891. 

*  Transactions  Kentucky  State  Medical  Society,  1890,  and  "  Essays 
and  Addresses,"  1892. 

*  Virginia  Medical  Monthly,  May,  1893. 
•Medical  News,  May  17,  1896. 

•Weekly  Medical  Review,  November  2,  1889. 

^  Philadelphia  Medical  and  Surgical  Reporter,  September  7  and  18, 
1889. 

*  Medicine,  September,  1895. 

*  Transactions  National  Prison  Reform  Association,  1895. 


PREFACE  9 

even  though  its  identity  has  been  lost  and  compilers  of  crimin- 
ologic  bibliography  have  overlooked  it. 

This  work  has  been  in  process  of  preparation  for  many 
years.  The  sole  reason  for  deferring  its  publication  until  now 
was  the  purely  practical  one  that  the  surgeon,  who  must  needs 
"  live  by  the  knife,"  has  little  time  to  devote  to  any  efforts,  liter- 
ary or  other,  outside  of  the  limits  of  professional  work. 
Especially  is  this  true  in  these  modern  days  of  specialism. 

No  apology  is  offered  for  the  radical  tone  of  some  of  the  ideas 
expressed  in  this  volume,  nor  for  what  may  seem  to  be  sociologic 
pessimism,  displayed  here  and  there.  I  have  presented  what  I 
believe  to  be  truths,  gleaned  from  study  and  observation.  The 
chapters  on  Anarchy,  and  Sexual  Vice  and  Crime,  in  particular, 
contain  ideas  that  are  not  consonant  with  those  entertained  by  the 
great  majority  of  people.  Nevertheless,  I  believe  them  to  be 
well  grounded,  and  if  my  premises  are  not  correct,  human  nature 
and  psychology  have  presented  themselves  to  me  en  m<isqiie. 
Whether  or  not  it  is  easy  for  human  nature  to  masquerade  before 
the  physician  is  left  for  my  professional  brethren  to  answer. 

It  is  hoped  that  the  volume  may  do  a  little  missionary  work 
for  an  important  cause,  but,  as  it  is  intended  primarily  for  pro- 
fessional readers,  it  has  been  impossible  to  avoid  the  use  of  many 
technical  terms  that  may  not  be  comprehended  by  the  layman. 
The  subject  of  sociology,  however,  has  attracted  so  much  atten- 
tion of  late,  that  most  of  the  language  of  criminology,  at  least,  is 
familiar  to  the  reading  public. 

It  will  be  understood  that  the  views  of  the  vice  and  crime 
problem  presented  in  this  volume  are  based  mainly  upon  the  con- 
ditions prevailing  in  America.  The  American  view-point  must 
necessarily  be  somewhat  different  from  the  European.  Special 
environmental  influences  operating  for  ages  in  the  development 
of  the  criminal  class  are  responsible  for  much  of  the  apparent 
radicalism  of  Lombroso  and  his  school.  The  same  is  true  of  the 
work  of  other  European  criminal  anthropologists. 


^^    (/f^rxk^^^^Jyi^jt^ 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  Social  Pathology  13 

II.  The  Principles  of  Evolution  in  their  Relations  to  Crimi- 
nal Sociology  and  Anthropology,  and  to  Social  Diseases 
in  General 41 

III.  The  Etiology  of  Social  Diseases  in  General,  with  especial 

reference  to   Crime    80 

IV.  Neuroses  in  their  Relations  to  Social  Diseases 145 

V.  The  Chemistry  of  Social  Diseases  195 

VI.  Anarchy  in  its  Relations  'to  Crime   229 

VII.  Sexual  Vice  and  Crime  303 

VIII.  Sexual  Vice  and  Crime — Continued  374 

IX.  The  Race  Problem  in  its  Relation  to  Sexual  Vice  and 

Crime  393 

X.  The  Treatment  of  Sexual  Vice  and  Crime  400 

XI.  Genius  and  Degeneracy  427 

XII.  Physical  and  Psychic  Characteristics  of  the  Criminal  . .  476 

XIII.  Illustrative  Crania  and  Physiognomies  of  Degenerates — 

Types  of  Criminals   517 

XIV.  The   Therapeutics   of   Social   Disease   in    General,   vs^ith 

especial  reference  to  Crime  556 


THE 


DISEASES   OF  SOCIETY 


CHAPTER    I 


SOCIAL   PATHOLOGY 


General  Considerations. — Society  is  composed  of  human 
integers,  upon  the  physical  and  psychic  health  of  which  its  in- 
tegrity depends.  Morbid  phenomena  affecting  the  social  body 
exist  analogous  to  those  affecting  the  individual  integers.  Just 
as  diseases  affecting  certain  areas  of  cells — the  individual  in- 
tegers of  the  animal  body — may  vitiate  the  health  not  only  of 
the  neighboring  cells,  but  of  the  entire  body,  so  may  the  mental, 
moral,  and  physical  diseases  of  the  human  body  entity  react 
injuriously  upon  other  individuals,  and  also  upon  the  society  of 
which  they  are  a  part.  In  like  manner,  a  constitutional  disease 
may  produce  secondarily  diseases  of  remote  cell  areas  of  the 
body,  whether  the  cells  be  general  or  special  in  their  function, 
and  serious  disturbances  of  the  social  body  may  produce  disas- 
trous effects  in  the  physical  and  psychic  constitution  of  indi- 
viduals, whether  taken  alone  or  as  specialized  groups  or  classes. 

There  is,  then,  a  pathology  of  the  social  body,  comprising  most 
of  the  evils  from  which  society  suffers.  Crime,  prostitution, 
pauperism,  insanity  in  its  sociologic  relations,  anarchy,  political 
corruption,  and  adverse  economic  and  industrial  conditions  and 
their  causes,  congeners,  and  results  will  be  discussed  in  this  vol- 
ume as  the  most  important  phases  of  social  disease.  The  fact 
that  social  diseases  are  often  due  to  actual  physical  disease  in 
offenders  against  society  in  itself  justifies  the  use  of  the  term, 
social  pathology. 

This  work,  th^en,  is  not  a  treatise  on  sociology,  criminology, 

13 


14  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

criminal  anthropology,  penology,  nor  yet  upon  that  latest  omni- 
bus to  which  some  assign  all  moral  or  psychic  aberrations, — 
degeneracy, — but  is  intended  to  comprehend  all  of  these  subjects, 
in  so  far  as  they  bear  upon  social  disease  in  its  various  diva- 
gations. 

Vice  and  crime  are  coeval  with  the  human  race.  There  is 
no  race  so  low  that  it  does  not  have  word  equivalents  for  "  good 
man,"  "  bad  man,"  "  thief,"  '*  murderer,"  and  "  prostitute." 
Man  has  evolved,  physically,  mentally,  and  morally,  and  his 
necessities,  desires,  and  ambitions  have  correspondingly  varied. 
The  social  systems  that  he  has  established  have  evolved  propor- 
tionately. As  evolution  has  progressed  in  these  directions,  there 
has  been  a  variation  in  moral  standards,  by  which  they  have  been 
adapted  to  the  necessities  of  man  for  self-protection  against  his 
kind, — i.e.,  agamst  the  other  atoms  of  the  social  fabric  of  which 
he  is  a  part.  Out  of  the  necessities  of  man's  environment  has 
been  developed  conscience.  The  capacity  for  development  of  con- 
science varies  with  different  races  and  different  individuals  of  the 
same  race.  It  varies  with  environment  and  with  the  physical 
and  mental  attributes  of  the  individual.  Its  basis  is  largely 
physical,  but  when  viewed  along  broad  and  comprehensive  lines, 
there  are  many  other  factors  to  consider.  These  factors  are 
often  subtle,  and  are  intimately  associated  with  the  pathology  of 
the  body  social.  The  evolution  of  conscience  and  morals  will  be 
specially  considered  later. 

The  orthodox  explanations  and  methods  of  study  and  repres- 
sion of  crime  are  based  upon  the  old-time  fallacy  of  human 
equality,  which  laid  the  burden  of  responsibility  for  vice  and 
crime  upon  the  individual  will.  They  are  out  of  date,  because 
founded  upon  principles  originally  formulated  by  man  in  his 
primitive  state.  Human  environment  has  broadened  with  human 
progress,  and  znce  versa.  The  view-point  of  the  penologist  and 
sociologist  has,  however,  in  the  main,  remained  narrow,  so  far 
as  crime  and  its  causes  and  remedies  are  concerned.  Science  is 
gradually  broadening  the  social  view,  and  hopes  to  eventually 
improve  the  methods  of  society  in  its  efforts  at  self-protection 
from  its  own  vicious  products.  * 


SOCIAL    PATHOLOGY  15 

The  philosophic,  materialistic  study  of  crime  is  one  of  the 
newer  phases  of  advancement  in  sociologic  and  medical  science, 
and  is  the  best  evidence  at  our  command  of  general  progress  and 
enlightenment.  Time  was  when  it  would  have  been  dangerous 
to  advance  such  views  as  are  being  promulgated  to-day.  When 
reasoning  upon  the  crime  question  was  based  entirely  on  senti- 
ment, the  study  of  the  criminal  was  governed  chiefly  by  dogma 
and  moralistic  sophistry.  That  the  question  is  a  practical,  not  a 
sentimental  one  is  shown  by  the  expensiveness  of  the  criminal  to 
society.  Most  of  the  disbursements  of  a  community  in  times  of 
peace  are  for  the  suppression  of  vice  and  crime.  All  the  ma- 
chinery of  justice  is  necessary  to  protect  the  good  from  the  evil. 
The  cost  is  between  three  and  five  dollars  per  year  for  every  honest 
man  in  America.  The  nation  expends  annually  two  hundred  mil- 
lion dollars  on  this  account.  The  depredations  and  non-productive- 
ness of  the  crime  class  bring  this  up  to  about  five  hundred  million 
dollars.  The  direct  expense  to  the  family,  due  to  the  criminal,  is 
about  twenty-five  dollars.  This  tremendous  cost  is  increasing, 
and  the  cost  per  capita  is  more  than  we  pay  for  our  children's 
education.  As  Dumas  once  said  of  mendicancy,  criminality  is 
an  organized  body,  a  kind  of  association  of  those  who  have  not 
against  those  who  have.    Those  who  have  must  bear  the  burden. 

The  census  of  1890  showed  that  our  principal  degenerate 
classes^ — criminals,  paupers,  and  insane — numbered  about  two 
hundred  and  fifteen  thousand.  This  is  almost  as  large  as  the 
army  organized  by  the  United  States  during  the  war  with  Spain. 
It  is  larger  than  the  population  of  some  of  our  flourishing  States. 
It  is  almost  half  that  of  Colorado.  Approximately,  one  person  in 
every  three  hundred  and  twenty  in  this  country  is  criminal, 
insane,  or  a  pauper,  and  is  confined  in  some  public  institution. 
This  takes  into  account  only  the  73,045  paupers  in  almshouses ; 
the  entire  pauper  estimate  is  three  millions. 

Facetiously  and  otherwise,  Chicago  has  been  said  to  be  the 
wickedest  city  in  the  world.  If  statistics  count  for  anything, 
there  is  more  truth  in  this  assertion  than  is  comforting  to  our 
civic  pride.  This  much  is  true — viz.,  there  is  no  better  place  to 
study  the  crime  question  than  here. 


i6  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

In  a  recent  document  the  State's  attorney  substantiates  the 
claim  that  Chicago  offers  a  profitable  field  for  the  criminologist : 

"  In  volume  of  business  and  number  of  convictions,  the  Criminal 
Court  of  Cook  County  is  the  greatest  criminal  tribunal  in  the  world. 
More  prisoners  are  arraigned  at  its  bar  than  in  any  simrlar  court  in  the 
world,  including  London,  with  a  population  of  over  four  million.  In  the 
latter  city,  during  the 'year  1898,  the  total  number  of  convictions  for 
felonies  and  misdemeanors  was  2659.  The  total  number  in  Cook  County 
from  March,  1898,  to  March,  1899,  was  2819;  the  following  year  it  was 
2837.  During  the  year  1898,  there  were  3234  persons  arraigned  in  the 
London  court,  while  from  September,  1899  (the  court  year),  the  total 
number  of  indictments  found  in  Cook  County  was  3501.  From  Decem- 
ber, 1896,  to  October,  1900,  the  grand  juries  passed  upon  16,518  cases, 
being  an  average  of  over  four  thousand  cases  each  year,  and  resulting 
in  an  average  of  over  three  thousand  indictments  a  year."^ 

The  total  number  of  arrests  by  the  police  of  Chicago  in  the 
last  five  and  a  half  years  is  as  follows :  1897,  83,680 ;  1898,  'jy,- 
441;  1899,71,349;  1900,70,438;  1901,69,442;  first  six  months 
of  1902,  32,139.  Of  those  taken  into  custody  in  1 901,  3912  were 
arrested  for  assault,  1709  for  burglary,  32,469  for  disorderly 
conduct,  1306  for  gambling,  5307  for  larceny,  599  for  malicious 
mischief,  29  for  murder,  859  for  robbery,  and  750  for  vagrancy. 
However  much  we  may  blush  at  our  civic  and  legal  defects,  we 
have  no  occasion  to  feel  ashamed  of  our  reform  methods,  as 
shown  by  the  records  of  our  Juvenile  Court  and  of  the  John 
Worthy  school,  and  our  State  laws  for  the  protection  of  child- 
hood. 

While  acknowledging  the  flaws  in  our  administration  of  jus- 
tice, we  are  proud  of  some  features  of  our  police  department. 
The  Bertillon  anthropometric  system  was  first  adopted  in  this 
country  by  Chicago,  through  the  efforts  of  my  talented  friend. 
Major  McClaughry.  Our  Bureau  of  Identification  is  second 
only  to  Paris  in  its  number  of  records.  It  contains  the  histories, 
descriptions,  and  photographs  of  nearly  sixty  thousand  criminals, 
as  the  fruit  of  twenty  years'  labor. 

*  Annual  Report  of  Hon.  C.  S.  Deneen,  State's  attorney. 


SOCIAL    PATHOLOGY  17 

Criminology  was  once  a  very  simple  subject  for  study.  The 
entire  field  of  research  was  covered  from  the  inquiring,  search- 
ing eyes  of  science  by  a  blanket  of  dogma  and  egotistic  reason- 
ing— or,  rather,  lack  of  reasoning.  How  simple  the  Pharisaic 
doctrine  that  the  delinquencies  of  criminal  man  are  due  to  the 
fact  that  he  is  bad — that  he  is  not  so  good  as  we  are.  And  how 
simple  the  remedy, — to  punish  him,  preach  to  him,  and  make 
him  as  good  as  we  are.  The  self-conceit  and  absurdity  of  this 
dogmatic  view  are  sufficiently  obvious  to  the  thinking  mind. 

But  what  of  the  result  ?  What  has  been  accomplished  through 
this  simple  and  childlike  reasoning?  The  statistics  of  our  jails 
and  penitentiaries  show  an  increased  proportion  of  criminals  in 
every  social  system,  as  compared  with  that  of  past  years,  and  an 
increasing  cost  of  correction  of  crime,  that  are  not  reassuring. 
Increasing  refinement  of  civilization  should  have  produced  an 
improvement  in  our  criminal  statistics.  The  intelligence  of  our 
legislators  has  not  been  above  reproach,  or  they  would  have 
seen  that  our  penal  system  was  radically  wrong,  else  it  could 
not  have  been  such  a  colossal  failure.  The  efforts  of  the  re- 
former have  been,  on  the  average,  no  more  fruitful  of  results, 
chiefly  because  he  has  endeavored  to  accomplish  the  desired  end 
by  moral  persuasion,  with  an  almost  total  disregard  of  the 
physical  conditions  underlying  the  perverted  psychology  of  the 
delinquent.  His  intentions  have  been  good,  his  theory  and 
methods  wrong.  The  fallacy  of  the  old  method  of  study  and 
reform  of  criminals  lies  chiefly  in  the  fact  that  their  bodies 
have  been  forgotten. 

The  social  pathologist  should  concern  himself  with  the  moral 
aspect  of  the  question  only  in  so  far  as  it  may  be  one  of  the 
many  factors  in  the  etiology  and  cure  of  crime.  That  the  ele- 
ment of  morals  is  to  a  certain  degree  potent  in  the  causation  and 
cure  of  crime  is  admitted,  but  the  function  of  science  is  to  inquire 
into  all  the  circumstances  leading  up  to  the  physical,  mental,  and 
moral  degeneracy  of  social  offenders,  of  whatever  kind.  Science 
is  indifferent  as  to  whether  the  moral  aspect  of  the  question  is 
minimized  or  not,  seeking  only  the  cold  facts,  without  fear  or 
favor.     The  true  investigator  has  no  desire  to  discourage  the 

2 


i8  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

efforts  of  the  sentimental,  non-scientific  moralist.  The  true 
scientist,  more  than  other  men,  believes  that  he  should  "  render 
unto  Caesar  those  things  which  are  Caesar's." 

The  scientific  criminologist  should  not  deny  the  importance 
of  that  often  indefinite  quantity  termed  morals,  in  its  relations 
to  social  disease.  His  function  is  (i)  to  show  that  moral  quali- 
ties are  ultimately  dependent  upon  physical  conditions,  even 
though  these  conditions  are  not  always  demonstrable;  (2)  to 
harmonize  existing  theories  of  the  causes,  prevention,  and  cure 
of  crime;  and  (3)  to  reduce  the  subject  to  a  material,  scientific, 
and,  so  far  as  possible,  evolutionary  basis. 

It  is  unfortunate  that  some  who  pretend  to  be  abreast  of  mod- 
ern scientific  thought,  and  accept  evolutionary  law  as  applied  to 
biology,  consider  the  social  offender  as  something  apart  from  the 
general  scheme  of  nature,  to  be  measured  only  in  the  moral 
balance,  according  to  his  relative  degree  of  deliberate  wicked- 
ness. This  is  fallacious,  for  after  making  due  allowance  for  the 
elements  of  family  influence,  religion,  and  social  habit,  there  is 
still  a  wide  margin  of  vice  and  crime  to  be  accounted  for.  To 
cover  its  causes  exhaustively  it  would  be  necessary  to  follow 
minutely  all  of  the  religious,  political,  and  moral  conditions  of 
each  social  system. 

Reasoning  on  the  crime  question  must  be  broad  to  be  effec- 
tive, and  too  much  must  not  be  expected  from  advanced  ideas. 
As  George  A.  Winston,  President  of  the  State  University  of 
Texas,  once  remarked,^  "  Even  if  we  could  prevent  by  legislation 
the  production  of  offspring  by  the  criminal,  the  vicious,  the  de- 
fective, and  the  diseased,  and  even  if  we  could  secure  by  educa- 
tion the  mental,  moral,  religious,  esthetic,  and  physical  culture 
of  every  child  in  the  land,  crime  would  not  be  prevented  unless 
we  also  controlled  the  social,  political,  industrial,  and  climatic 
environments.  All  the  forces  of  civilization  enter  into  the 
causation  of  crime."  Ferri  covers  this  point  very  compre- 
hensively when  he  says,  "  The  volume  of  crime  will  not  be 
materially  diminished  by  codes  of  criminal  laws,  however  skil- 

*  Transactions  of  the  National  Prison  Reform  Association. 


SOCIAL    PATHOLOGY  19 

fully  they  may  be  constructed ;  but  by  an  amelioration  of  the 
adverse  individual  and  social  conditions  of  the  community  as  a 
whole.  Crime  is  a  product  of  these  adverse  social  conditions, 
and  the  only  way  of  grappling  with  it  is  to  do  away,  so  far  as 
possible,  with  the  causes  from  which  it  springs." 

Punitive,  corrective,  and  repressive  legislation  has  hitherto 
failed  absolutely  in  diminishing  the  volume  of  crime,  and  will 
always  fail,  in  great  measure,  unless  it  grapples  with  final  causes 
which,  try  as  it  may,  it  can  never  completely  control.  It  can, 
however,  ameliorate  them  to  a  certain  degree,  even  though  the 
disease  is  too  deep-seated  to  be  eradicated.  Social  disease  can- 
not be  completely  extirpated  and  the  patient — society — live. 

The  various  phases  of  social  evolution  are  familiar  to  every 
student  of  history.  For  example,  we  may  read  Hallam,  May, 
Buckle,  and  Guizot,  and  follow  the  people  of  England  through 
her  erratic  phases  of  progress  from  the  days  of  the  chaste  and 
goutless  Saxon  to  the  enlightened,  gouty,  and  physically  dete- 
riorated aristocracy  of  to-day,  without  increasing  our  confidence 
in  human  nature ;  nor  will  we  be  able  to  see  any  great  moral  or 
physical  benefits  occurring  to  Europeans  in  general  from  their 
progressive  civilization,  if  statistics  count  for  anything.  If  the 
last  of  the  Saxon  kings  were  to  return  to  earth  to-day,  he  would 
have  little  of  morals,  although  much  of  civilization,  to  learn  from 
the  latter-day  courts  of  Europe. 

The  assumption  that  the  criminal,  in  particular,  is  a  product 
of  evolution,  is  in  absolute  harmony  with  the  evolutionary  theory 
in  general.  Evolutionary  law  is  evidenced  all  along  the  line  of 
the  physical,  intellectual,  moral,  and  social  development  of  man 
through  the  long  vista  of  years  that  lies  behind  us,  through 
which  the  human  species  has  evolved  from  its  most  primitive 
type  to  what  is  alleged  to  be  the  acme  of  perfection,  as  seen  in 
the  Indo-European  and  Semitic  races  of  to-day. 

Modern  criminologA'  is  paying  its  attention  chiefly  to  the  body 
of  the  criminal,  in  the  belief  that  if  bodily  defects  and  physical 
depravity  are  corrected,  the  mental  organization — the  "  soul" — 
will  do  something  in  taking  care  of  itself.  No  advance  in  crimi- 
nology and  penology  ba?  been,  or  will  ever  be,  made  that  is  not 


20  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

founded  mainly  upon  scientific  materialism.  To  this  materialism 
moral  persuasion  must  be  subservient  and  secondary,  else  we 
shall  drop  back  into  the  absurdities  hitherto  prevailing  in  the 
study  of  the  crime  question.  "  Try  to  reform  your  man,  try 
to  purify  and  elevate  his  soul,  and  if  he  doesn't  come  to  time, 
lock  him  up  or  hang  him."  This  has  been  the  war-cry  of  the 
average  reformer  through  all  the  ages.  "  Make  a  healthy  man 
of  your  criminal,  or  prospective  criminal,  give  him  a  sound, 
well-developed  brain  to  think  with,  and  rich,  clean  blood  to  feed 
it  upon,  and  an  opportunity  to  earn  an  honest  living, — then 
preach  to  him  if  you  like."  This  is  the  fundamental  principle  of 
the  scientific  criminologist.     Which  is  the  more  rational? 

As  civilization  advances  and  theology  and  religion  become 
enlightened  in  theory  and  methods,  a  corresponding  improve- 
ment in  the  moral  tone  of  the  social  body  should  naturally  be 
expected.  Unfortunately,  however,  there  has  been  thus  far  no 
improvement,  so  far  as  available  statistics  show,  suflftcient  to 
encourage  the  eflforts  of  the  moralist.  Not  that  he  does  not  do 
individual  good,  but  the  factors  which  he  ignores  more  than 
oflfset  such  results  as  he  attains.  The  futility  of  moral  measures 
alone  in  reducing  the  mass  of  crime,  as  demonstrated  by  past 
experience,  is  explicable  only  upon  the  ground  that  there  is 
something  more  than  free  will  to  account  for  criminal  develop- 
ment. Free  will  is  operable  only  in  the  case  of  the  individual, 
and  incidentally  the  circumstances  that  sway  the  conduct  of  the 
criminal.  It  accomplishes  little  or  nothing  in  correcting  the 
evolutionary  influences  responsible  for  the  production  of  the 
criminal  class. 

The  failure  of  moral  means  of  repression  alone  may  be  readily 
shown.  We  will  suppose,  for  example,  that  a  certain  portion  of 
the  human  body  is  aflFected  by  disease,  dependent,  to  a  greater  or 
less  degree,  upon  a  depraved  constitutional  condition.  Measures 
of  local  correction, — i.e.,  correction  of  the  local  depravity  of 
tissue, — although  useful  to  a  certain  extent,  must  fail,  unless 
the  general  and  constitutional  influences  that  enhance  the  local 
trouble  are  corrected.  The  individual  is  but  an  atom  of  the 
social  fabric.     When  he  is  depraved,  logic  demands  the  correc- 


SOCIAL    PATHOLOGY  21 

tion  of  the  morbid  general  influences  pervading  the  social  body, 
which  cause  perversion  of  thought  and  action  in  the  individual. 
Moral  persuasion  acting  alone  is  usually  almost  impotent ;  the 
law  cannot  cope  with  the  question,  and  punishment  is  futile,  so 
far  as  mass  results  are  concerned,  because  these  influences 
operate  upon  the  isolated  integer,  and  not  upon  the  law  of 
causation.  Granting  that  certain  criminals  are  so  by  reason  of 
structural  peculiarities  and  evolutionary  development,  the  ineffi- 
cacy  of  moral  persuasion  as  a  panacea  is  evident. 

That  criminality  is  due  to  certain  influences  operating  by  a 
fixed  law  has  been  claimed  by  several  more  or  less  recent  eminent 
historical  and  statistical  authorities. 

Buckle  ^  and  Quetelet  *  have  advanced  some  striking  argu- 
ments bearing  upon  the  influences  modifying  the  moral  conduct 
of  the  human  race.  They  claim  that  many  of  the  actions  of  man- 
kind which  we  attribute  to  individual  free  will  and  independent 
action  are  really  the  result  of  a  fixed  and  immutable  law  con- 
trolling the  moral  world,  almost  as  definite  and  arbitrary  as  the 
laws  controlling  the  physical  world. 

It  has  been  shown  by  the  statistics  of  Great  Britain  and 
France  that  there  is  a  constant  proportion  in  the  ratio  of  criminal 
acts  to  the  number  of  population  in  those  countries. 

Rawson  ^  says, — 

"  No  greater  proof  can  be  given  of  the  possibility  of  arriving  at  cer- 
tain constants  with  regard  to  crime  than  the  fact  that  the  greatest  varia- 
tion in  the  proportion  of  any  class  of  criminals  at  the  same  period  of  life 
during  a  period  of  three  years  has  not  exceeded  a  half  of  one  per  cent." 

Quetelet  says, — 

"  In  everything  which  concerns  crime  the  same  numbers  recur  with 
a  constancy  which  cannot  be  mistaken.  This  is  the  case  with  those 
crimes  which  seem  quite  independent  of  human  foresight, — such,  for  in- 
stance, as  murders,  which  are  generally  committed  after  quarrels  arising 
from   circumstances    apparently    casual.      Nevertheless,    we   know    from 

*  History  of  Civilization  in  England. 

*  Sur  I'Homme,  Paris,  1883. 

*  Statistics  of  Crime  in  England  and  Wales. 


22  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

experience  that  every  year  there  takes  place  not  only  the  same  propor- 
tionate number  of  murders,  but  that  even  the  very  instruments  with  which 
they  are  committed  are  employed  in  the  same  proportion." 

Buckle  says, — 

"  Suicide  is  merely  a  production  of  the  general  conditions  of  society. 
The  individual's  volition  only  carries  into  effect  what  are  the  necessary 
consequences  of  preceding  circumstances." 

As  showing  how  regularity  in  the  course  of  human  events 
may  manifest  itself  in  the  most  trifling  details  of  every-day  life, 
one  of  Buckle's  statements  is  very  interesting: 

"  It  is  not  infrequent  for  individuals  to  drop  undirected  letters  in  the 
mail-box.  This  might  naturally  be  attributed  to  individual  carelessness, 
but  statistics  show  that  in  Paris  and  London,  due  allowance  being  made 
for  varying  circumstances,  increased  population,  etc.,  there  is  practically 
the  same  number  of  undirected  letters  found  in  the  mails  every  year." 

The  subtle  influence  suggested  as  causative  of  crime  by  the 
investigators  quoted  assumes  a  material  aspect  in  the  light  of 
modern  research.  Assuming  a  physical  basis  for  the  acts  of 
human  beings,  it  is  fair  to  conclude  that  under  past  and  present 
conditions  every  social  system  has,  of  necessity,  a  certain  pro- 
portion of  degenerates  and  persons  of  unstable  nervotis  equi- 
librium. That  this  proportion  is  not  necessarily  fixed  in  any 
given  social  system,  is  shown  by  the  increase  of  crime,  not  only 
in  America,  but  in  other  countries  of  recent  years. 

The  profundity  of  the  crime  question  is  nowhere  better  illus- 
trated than  in  the  relation  of  weather  to  crime.  There  is  little 
reason  to  doubt  that  thermometric  and  barometric  changes  exert 
a  profound  influence  on  the  quantity  and  quality  of  criminal  acts 
in  any  given  community.  The  crime  wave,  especially  so  far  as 
crimes  of  impulse  are  concerned,  has  a  curve  which  corresponds 
fairly  well  with  the  temperature  curve.  It  is  traditional  in  Spain 
that  the  crime  wave  rises  when  the  east  wind  blows.  Burglary 
and  robbery,  especially  of  the  "  hold-up"  variety,  are  more  fre- 
quent in  winter.  Murder  and  suicide  occur  most  often  in  the 
summer  months.     During  January,  February,  and  March  of 


SOCIAL   PATHOLOGY  23 

1901,  twelve  hundred  suicides  were  reported  in  the  United 
States,  as  against  sixteen  hundred  during  July,  August,  and  Sep- 
tember. In  the  same  periods  the  number  of  murders  was  seven- 
teen hundred  for  the  cold,  and  two  thousand  five  hundred  for 
the  hot  months.  The  number  of  lynchings  in  the  hot  months  was 
double  that  during  the  cold.  The  hot  weather  increased  the  mur- 
derous mob  instinct.  Leffingwell  has  written  very  convincingly 
on  the  relation  of  seasons  to  crime.® 

Hot  weather  seems  to  have  an  effect  chiefly  in  increasing 
crimes  of  impulse.  Neuropathic  individuals  adjust  themselves 
with  great  difficulty  to  changes  of  climatic  environment.  The 
predisposition  to  crime  existing,  anything  that  destroys  the 
already  unstable  mental  equilibrium,  and  at  the  same  time  makes 
the  nervous  centres  hyperesthetic,  has  the  same  effect.  Hot 
weather  is  in  no  wise  different  in  this  respect  from  alcohol.  In- 
deed, the  greater  consumption  of  alcoholic  beverages  during  the 
summer  months  is  inseparable  from  the  effects  of  the  weather 
per  se.  Auto-intoxication,  which,  as  will  be  noted  later,  I  believe 
to  be  a  prominent  factor  in  the  etiology  of  crime,  is  in  some 
subjects  more  marked  in  summer,  despite  the  increase  of  skin 
activity,  because  of  a  relatively  great  increase  in  tissue  metamor- 
phosis that  over-balances  elimination.  The  effect  of  direct  sun- 
rays  upon  neuropaths  is  well  known.  Sunstroke  and  subsequent 
criminality  by  impulse  is  not  rare.  The  increase  of  robbery  dur- 
ing the  winter  months  is  due,  not  to  the  effect  of  temperature 
upon  criminal  neuropathy,  but  to  the  increased  necessities,  both 
of  the  criminal  and  the  working  class.  The  struggle  for  adjust- 
ment of  nervous  equilibrium  during  the  depressing  weather  of 
spring  and  fall,  and  especially  the  former,  is  productive  of  a 
marked  increase  in  suicides. 

Increase  in  suicides  is  often  associated  with  an  increase  in 
diseases  of  various  kinds.  The  grippe  season  in  Chicago  gen- 
erally shows  a  marked  increase  in  suicides.  Whether  the  same 
atmospheric  conditions  that  favor  grippe  also  act  unfavorably 

"  Illegitimacy  and  the  Influence  of  Seasons  upon  Conduct,  Albert 
Leffingwell,  M.D. 


24  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

upon  the  unstable  brain  of  the  neuropaths  in  the  community  is  an 
open  question,  but  it  is  to  me  a  logical  explanation.  Cases  of 
suicide  of  actual  sufferers  from  grippe  or  other  "  season"  dis- 
orders are,  of  course,  easily  explained. 

The  tonic  effect  of  cold  weather  in  maintaining  the  nervous 
and  mental  equilibrium  of  neuropaths,  and  thus  inhibiting  crimes 
of  impulse,  is  obvious.  The  physiologic  turmoil  in  the  sexual 
system  ushered  in  by  Spring  is  well  known.  Poets  have  sung  of 
it,  and  rapists  have  been  hanged  for  it.  It  bears  a  relation  not 
only  to  sexual  crimes,  but  to  all  crimes  of  impulse,  such  as  mur- 
der and  suicide. 

In  special  localities  crime  in  general  is  decreased  by  cold 
weather.  The  "  red  light"  districts  and  the  sections  of  our  large 
cities  devoted  to  low  places  of  amusement  show  a  great  diminu- 
tion in  the  criminal  record  during  the  cold  months.  Here,  espe- 
cially, warm  weather  and  drink  co-operate.  The  denizens  of  the 
"  levee"  district  in  Chicago  are  much  less  active  during  cold 
weather,  but  this  local  decrease  of  crime  must  be  discounted,  so 
far  as  robbery  is  concerned.  There  is  no  profit  to  the  denizens  of 
the  slums  in  robbing  each  other,  and,  as  curiosity  and  "thrill" 
seekers  with  money  do  not  visit  the  levee  in  cold  weather  so  often 
as  in  summer,  the  denizens  of  the  levee  hie  them  to  the  sand-bag 
and  the  belated  home-goer  of  the  outlying  sections  of  the  city. 

The  street-walkers  of  the  levee  are  much  less  in  evidence 
during  cold  weather,  and  fewer  of  them  are  arrested.  They,  too, 
seek  more  profitable,  if  less  congenial,  fields. 

Lombroso  ^  lays  especial  emphasis  on  the  race  factor  in  crime. 
In  India  the  Zacka-Kail  tribe  makes  a  profession  of  robbery. 
Certain  tribes  of  Bedouins  are  parasitic  and  distinguished  as 
adventurers  and  freebooters.  In  many  provinces  of  Italy,  brig- 
andage is  a  profession.  The  Gypsies  are  a  lazy,  brawling, 
thievish  class,  who  assassinate  without  remorse.  The  Jewish 
race  is  singularly  free  from  criminality. 

I  will  not  enter  upon  an  exhaustive  discussion  of  the  relation 
of  race  in  general,  and  of  climatic  and  geographic  environment 

^L'homme  Criminel. 


SOCIAL   PATHOLOGY  25 

in  particular,  upon  social  disease.  It  is  obvious  that  the  energy, 
industry,  and  mental  capacity  of  a  people,  and  consequently  of  its 
individual  integers,  are  greatly  modified  by  climate.  Climatic 
and  geographic  conditions  modify  the  means  of  subsistence. 
Where  nature  is  prodigal,  as  in  the  tropics,  the  races  she  supports 
are  slothful,  sensual,  and  violent.  Where  she  is  ultra-parsi- 
monious, as  in  the  frigid  zones,  people  are  sluggish,  inactive,  and 
occupied  altogether  with  their  subsistence.  In  temperate  climes 
alone  the  desirable  balance  of  intellect  is  seen.  It  is  here  we  find 
the  out-croppings  of  genius,  the  most  beautiful  and  unstable 
flower  in  the  garden  of  life,  and  that  most  sturdy  plant,  normal 
man.  Nestling  at  their  roots  lurk  the  evil  things  of  society, 
nourished,  like  the  parasites  they  are,  by  the  life-juices  of  the 
normal  plants.  Genius-flowers  above  and  fungi  below  draw  their 
substance  from  the  same  source.  They  feed  upon  the  vital  forces 
of  society. 

Granting  that  social  disease  has  a  physical  basis,  materialistic 
dogmatism  carried  to  extremes  in  the  study  of  crime  would  be 
even  worse  than  moral  dogmatism,  for  it  would  exclude  all  social, 
psychic,  moral,  toxemic,  religious,  educational,  legal,  industrial, 
and  political  factors  in  vice  and  crime,  simply  because  they  could 
not  be  reduced  to  a  pathological-anatomic  basis.  The  exclusion 
of  all  these  factors  would  leave  us  helpless  in  the  battle  against 
social  disease,  and  at  the  tender  mercy  of  the  half-baked  dogmas 
of  alleged  scientists,  whose  bigotry  is  several  shades  more  dan- 
gerous than  was  the  dominance  of  religious  fanaticism.  The 
bigotry  of  some  so-called  criminal  anthropologists  is,  as  a  dis- 
tinguished American  physician  has  intimated,  a  monster  which, 
if  we  do  not  have  a  care,  will  destroy  the  very  foundations  of 
society.® 

The  first  flush  of  enthusiasm  is  quite  likely  to  infuse  the  stu- 
dent of  criminal  anthropology  with  a  spirit  of  ultra-materialism. 
There  is  something  so  fascinating  in  the  reduction  of  moral 
obliquities  to  a  materialistic  ultimate  represented  by  a  twisted 
cranium  or  an  aberrant  cerebral  convolution,  that  the  temptation 

*The  Modern  Frankenstein,  George  M.  Gould,  M.D. 


26  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

to  close  our  eyes  to  the  fearful  complexity  of  the  crime  problem 
is  not  to  be  wondered  at. 

I  fear  the  pendulum  of  progress  has  swung  too  far  in  the 
material  direction,  and  believe  that  a  halt  should  be  made  for  the 
purpose  of  reviewing  the  work  already  done  and  sifting  the  chaff 
from  the  wheat.  The  public  should  understand,  however,  that 
while  criminal  anthropology  needs  to  be  saved  from  the  mis- 
directed zeal  of  some  of  its  over-enthusiastic  though  honest 
friends,  there  has  recently  sprung  up  a  class  of  dilettante  scien- 
tists and  alleged  criminal  anthropologists,  whose  views  do  not 
merit  the  slightest  attention.  They  are  panderers  to  sensational- 
ism, whose  range  of  vision  does  not  extend  beyond  the  bounds  of 
self-glorification  in  court  trials  and  the  daily  press. 

The  foolishness  that  has  been  perpetrated  in  the  name  of 
criminal  anthropology  has  perhaps  added  something  to  the  gayety 
of  nations,  but  it  has  done  more  to  prejudice  logical  thinkers 
against  a  great  principle, — i.e.,  the  material  factor  in  vice  and 
crime.  When,  as  once  happened  in  Chicago,  an  "  expert"  testi- 
fies that  a  murderer  is  insane  because  he  shows  certain  stigmata 
of  degeneracy,  it  is  certainly  time  to  call  a  halt.  The  slurs  cast 
upon  the  witness  by  the  State's  attorney  in  his  address  to  the 
jury  were  but  a  reflex  of  the  impression  that  such  absurd  testi- 
mony has  upon  both  lawyer  and  layman."  One  such  irrational 
exhibition  on  the  part  of  a  would-be  scientist  does  more  harm 
than  can  be  offset  by  a  dozen  logical  treatises  upon  criminal 
anthropology.  Whatever  the  motive  of  such  witnesses  may  be, 
the  damage  done  to  science  is  indubitable.  That  the  murderer 
was  really  insane  does  not  lessen  the  absurdity  of  the  testimony. 
The  same  individual  glibly  recounts  his  feat  of  making  an  an- 
thropologic study  and  comparison  of  ten  thousand  persons  who 
passed  him  in  review  on  a  busy  London  corner. 

The  exploits  of  some  criminal  anthropologists  are  suggestive 
of  the  story  told  of  two  rival  French  savants.  One  of  these 
learned  men  invented  a  machine  for  detecting  hairs  on  eggs. 


*  See  testimony  in  the  case  of  Prendergast,  the  murderer  of  Mayor 
Carter  H.  Harrison. 


SOCIAL    PATHOLOGY  27 

The  other,  nothing  daunted,  forthwith  invented  a  machine  for 
shaving  them  off. 

The  faculty  of  discovering  things  which,  as  Josh  BilUngs 
said,  "  aint  so,"  is  becoming  epidemic  in  medicine.  It  is  one  of 
the  fruits  of  a  desire  for  notoriety  in  original  research  that  is 
strangling  medical  philosophy.  It  will  last  until  a  Voltaire  arises 
above  the  muck  of  "  scientific"  nonsense  to  ridicule,  satirize,  and 
lampoon  some  of  our  laboratory  microcephali  to  death.  Then 
will  come  the  reaction  that  shall  restore  the  balance  to  science. 

The  work  of  some  of  our  celebrated  authorities  in  the  field  of 
Criminal  Anthropology  is  sadly  marred  by  unessentials  and  ab- 
surdities. The  statement  of  the  admittedly  great  Lombroso,  that 
the  conservative  tendency  of  women  in  questions  of  social  order 
"  is  to  be  sought  in  the  relative  immobility  of  the  ovule  as  com- 
pared with  the  zoosperm,"  ^"  should  excite  the  risibilities  of  the 
Sphinx,  and  his  naive  assertion  that  "  fifty  per  cent,  of  assassins 
and  twenty-five  per  cent,  of  poisoners  blushed  at  mention  of  their 
crimes,  while  forty-five  per  cent,  received  any  allusion  to  them  in 
absolute  silence,"  should  go  thundering  down  the  corridors  of 
Time  with  reverberations  louder  than  those  of  Sampson's  guns 
at  Santiago. 

The  present  trend  of  scientific  thought  upon  the  crime  ques- 
tion is  itself  open  to  adverse  criticism,  in  that  it  is  too  much  con- 
cerned with  the  material  conditions  and  cure  of  the  individual 
criminal  of  to-day,  rather  than  with  the  remote  influences  that 
produce  criminality  in  general.  The  study  of  these  influences  is 
the  axis  upon  which  criminology  should  revolve. 

It  is  fair  to  say  that  the  human  being  is  an  animal  primarily 
possessing  instinctive  tendencies  to  vice  and  crime,  but  who  is 
subjected  under  civilized  conditions  to  certain  inhibitory  in- 
fluences that  have  accumulated  through  the  ages,  and  which  pre- 
vent the  average  man  from  becoming  vicious  or  criminal.  When 
these  inhibitions  or  restraints  are  removed,  criminal  acts  result. 

Crime  and  vice  are  in  general  simply  a  harking  back  to  primi- 
tive impulses.     Were  there  no  society  and  no  family,  vice  and 

"  The  Female  Offender. 


28  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

crime  could  not  exist.  Scriptural  writers,  inaccurate  though  they 
were,  recognized  this.  When  Adam  was  alone  there  was  no 
crime ;  Eve  came,  and  with  her,  curiosity,  and  then  a  broken  law. 
Crime  and  immorality  entered  the  human  scheme  in  general,  only 
when  communal  interests  developed.  As  soon  as  social  selfish- 
ness began  to  dominate  individual  selfishness,  crime  and  im- 
morality became  possible.  So  long  as  individual  selfishness  is  not 
completely  submerged,  but  struggles  to  the  surface  from  time  to 
time,  crime  and  vice  will  continue  to  exist. 

Each  social  system  is  directly  responsible  for  its  own  crimi- 
nals, and  in  no  less  degree  for  its  paupers,  prostitutes,  inebriates, 
and  insane.  They  are  the  flotsam  and  jetsam  of  the  social  stream. 
They  are,  so  to  speak,  the  excreta  of  society — the  products  of 
retrograde  social  metamorphosis.  They  bear  the  same  relation 
to  the  social  body  that  certain  excrementitious  products  of  physio- 
logic change  bear  to  the  animal  body.  The  sources  of  these 
products  should  be  considered,  and  the  aberrations  of  the  social 
body  that  produce  them  corrected,  else  no  measures  of  repression 
of  resultant  evils  can  be  successful.  The  conditions  producing 
these  excrementitious  social  products  are  more  potent  for 
evil,  yet  more  amenable  to  correction,  than  the  analogous  con- 
ditions in  the  human  body.  In  the  animal  body  certain  excremen- 
titious products  of  physiologic  change  are  absolutely  unavoidable. 
There  is,  however,  no  necessity  of  allowing  these  products  to 
remain  in  the  system  and  contaminate  it,  nor  of  permitting  them 
to  be  so  placed  as  to  injure  other  animals  after  discharge  from 
the  body.    Is  not  the  same  true  with  regard  to  the  social  body  ? 

All  of  the  conditions  that  produce  the  criminal  class  are  fur- 
nished by  society. 

As  Lacassagne  remarks," — 

"  The  social  environment  is  the  culture  medium  of  criminality ;  the 
criminal  is  the  microbe,  an  element  that  becomes  important  only  when 
it  finds  a  medium  which  will  cause  it  to  ferment.  Every  society  has  the 
criminals  it  deserves." 


"L'homme  criminel  compare  a  I'homme  primitif,   1882. 


SOCIAL    PATHOLOGY  29 

Society's  method  of  fulfilling  its  obligation  to  its  integers  is 
to  notice  and  punish  the  criminal  after  he  becomes  a  menace  to 
the  safety,  comfort,  and  commercial  interests  of  society — not 
before.  The  results  of  the  poisonous  stream  of  degeneracy  as  it 
sweeps  through  some  particular  part  of  the  social  system  are 
taken  cognizance  of,  and  an  attempt  made  to  correct  them.  Is 
this  logical  ?  Would  it  not  be  far  better  to  turn  the  stream  harm- 
lessly aside,  dam  it  at  its  source,  or  antidote  its  contained  poisons, 
if  such  a  course  be  possible  ? 

In  the  matter  of  the  regulation  of  matrimony  alone,  society 
is  woefully  at  fault.  Man  is  not  so  wise  as  the  bull  in  the  fable : 
A  magnificent  Durham  bull  was  quietly  munching  the  juicy 
clover  in  a  field,  one  fine  morning,  when  he  was  observed  by  a 
man  who  was  passing.  The  man  went  up  to  the  fence  near 
which  the  bull  was  grazing,  gazed  at  him  admiringly,  comment- 
ing audibly  upon  his  fine  points,  and  exclaimed, — 

"  What  a  magnificent  animal !  Really,  nothing  could  be 
nearer  perfection  in  his  species." 

The  bull  turned  his  head,  gazed  at  the  man  pityingly,  and, 
much  to  his  amazement,  replied  : 

"  Yes,  you  poor  little  degenerate  shrimp,  I  am  a  fine  animal, 
but  if  half  as  much  pains  had  been  taken  in  selecting  your  father 
and  mother  as  were  taken  in  choosing  mine,  you'd  have  been  a 
fine  animal  yourself,  instead  of  a  measly  little  two-legged 
nothing." 

Does  society  owe  the  criminal  anything?  Is  he  worthy  of 
sympathy?  Has  he  any  organic  right  to  partake  of  the  milk  of 
human  kindness? 

It  is  not  long  since  church,  state,  and  private  savagery  com- 
bined to  give  the  criminal  a  foretaste  of  the  orthodox  hereafter 
by  making  his  life  a  hell  of  torment.  The  nineteenth  century 
witnessed  a  change  in  the  attitude  of  society  towards  him.  Bar- 
barities of  punishment  began  to  be  unpopular.  The  futility  and 
brutality  of  the  old-time  methods  of  punishment  and  reform 
began  to  dawn  upon  penologists.  The  view  that  the  criminal  in 
general  had  some  rights  which  society  was  in  duty  bound  to 
respect  gradually  dawned  upon  humanity.     This  advanced  idea 


30  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

has  gained  ground,  but  is  not  yet  upon  a  firm  footing.  The 
situation  is,  however,  hopeful.  John  Howard,  the  great  prison 
reformer,  could  he  but  return  to  earth  fifty  years  hence,  would 
find  himself  enshrined  in  the  affections  of  humanity  side  by  side 
with  Pinel,  the  master  alienist,  who  redeemed  the  insane  from  the 
brutalities  to  which  they  had  been  subjected  from  time  imme- 
morial. The  Biblical  and  savage  idea  of  casting  out  devils  is, 
theoretically  at  least,  a  thing  of  the  past,  however  often  it  may 
be  put  in  practice  by  occasional  barbarians. 

If  the  criminal  is  a  product  of  certain  conditions  of  heredity 
and  environment  over  which  he  has  little,  if  any,  control,  and 
for  which  our  social  system  is  directly  or  indirectly  responsible ; 
if  these  conditions  are  remediable  by  society,  then  society's  re- 
sponsibility and  duty  are  clear.  If  an  individual  is  born  with 
criminal  tendencies,  escaping  his  destiny  only  by  chance ;  if  he  is 
a  criminal  from  lack  of  opportunities  of  physical  and  moral  train- 
ing, to  which  easily  preventable  evil  associations  are  added ;  if 
the  childhood  of  the  criminal-to-be  is  undisciplined,  untutored, 
and  undirected  ;  if  his  virtues — microscopic  though  they  be — are 
unnurtured  or  allowed  to  lie  dormant,  while  all  the  evil  in  his 
make-up  is  allowed  to  be  brought  out  and  developed  by  vicious 
environment ;  if  the  soul  of  good  that  lies  in  all  things  evil  is  not 
cultivated, — then,  indeed,  has  he  a  cause  against  society;  then, 
indeed,  is  he  entitled  to  the  deepest  sympathy  and  commiseration. 
This  without  denial  of  the  right  of  society  to  protect  itself  against 
him  and  his  kind. 

The  prospective  criminal  once  born,  what  does  society  do  to 
prevent  his  becoming  a  criminal?  Practically  nothing.  The 
child  of  the  honest  poor  is  allowed  to  run  the  streets  and  contract 
evil  habits  and  vicious  associations.  The  result  is  eventually  a 
criminal,  a  drunkard,  or  a  prostitute,  in  a  large  proportion  of 
cases.  The  child  with  hereditarily  criminal  propensities  is 
allowed  to  follow  the  same  course.  The  diseased  or  degenerate 
child,  whose  parents  are  unable  to  care  for  it,  is  allowed  to  be 
exposed  to  pernicious  influences  and  vicissitudes  which,  unless 
he  be  fortunate  enough  to  die  young,  eventually  make  him  a 
burden  upon  the  community. 


SOCIAL    PATHOLOGY  31 

What  is  the  remedy  at  present  in  vogue?  Society  punishes 
the  vicious  child  after  a  criminal  act  has  been  committed,  and 
sends  the  diseased  one  to  the  hospital  to  be  supported  by  the 
public,  after  he  has  become  helpless.  Even  in  this,  the  twentieth 
century,  the  child  who  has  committed  his  first  offence  is  in  most 
communities  thrown  by  the  authorities  into  contact  with  older  and 
more  hardened  criminals, — to  have  his  criminal  education  com- 
pleted. The  same  fate  is  meted  out  to  the  adult  "  first  oflFender." 
We  have  millions  for  sectarian  universities,  millions  for  foreign 
missions,  but  few  dollars  for  the  redemption  of  children  of 
vicious  propensities  or  corrupting  opportunities,  who  are  the 
product  of  our  own  vicious  social  system.  Every  penal  institu- 
tion, every  expensive  process  of  criminal  law,  is  a  monument  to 
the  stupidity  and  wastefulness  of  society, — an  expenditure  of 
money  and  energy  to  cure  a  disease  that  might  be  largely  pre- 
vented and  more  logically  treated  where  not  prevented. 

To  deny  that  many  criminals  have  been  reformed  would  be 
unjust,  but  that  both  moral  persuasion  and  punishment  have 
shown  meagre  aggregate  results  in  the  suppression  of  crime  must 
be  admitted.  The  proportions  of  various  crimes  to  the  population 
has  varied  comparatively  little  in  the  recent  past.  Modern  sta- 
tistics, however,  tend  to  show  that  crime  is  now  increasing  faster 
than  population.  A  comparison  of  the  census  of  1850  with  the 
census  of  1890  showed  that  the  population  had  increased  one  hun- 
dred and  seventy  per  cent.,  while  the  proportion  of  criminals  had 
increased  four  hundred  and  forty-five  per  cent. 

It  must  be  acknowledged  that  the  actual  increase  of  criminality 
should  be  discounted  somewhat  by  legislative  increase  of  crimes. 
Murder,  to  be  sure,  was  once  frequent,  and  capital  crimes  were 
numerous,  but  the  total  number  of  acts  that  were  legally  con- 
sidered crimes  was  small.  In  modern  life  many  acts  that  were 
taken  for  granted  in  older  systems  of  civilization  are  pronounced 
crimes.  Comparing  present  statistics  with  the  more  recent  past, 
this  source  of  fallacy  is,  however,  of  little  moment. 

The  city  of  New  York  has  grown  wickeder,  as  shown  by  the 
last  estimate  for  ten  years.  The  annual  report  of  the  city  magis- 
trates showed  that  the  population  of  the  city  had  increased  thirty- 


32  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

three  and  one-third  per  cent,  in  the  ten  years  from  1886  to  1896, 
while  crime  had  increased  fifty  per  cent.  Nine  magistrates  tried 
112,160;  held  73,537  defendants,  and  discharged  the  other 
38,623. 

Arrests  for  all  offences  had  increased  fifty  per  cent.,  with  an 
increase  of  nearly  ninety  per  cent,  in  felonies.  In  1886,  the  fel- 
onies reached  7021.  Female  prisoners  more  than  kept  pace  with 
the  general  average,  increasing  from  412  in  1886  to  ']22  in  1896. 

Seventy-two  women  suicided  in  1896,  as  against  twenty-five 
in  1886.  The  increase  of  male  suicides  was  from  sixty-four  in 
1886  to  one  hundred  and  forty-seven  in  1896.  Ten  years  ago 
eight  female  burglars  were  captured.  Last  year  the  number  was 
sixteen.  In  1896  12 19  males  were  charged  with  burglary,  as 
against  697  in  1886. 

Women  murderers  reached  the  limit  in  1895,  with  nineteen 
cases.  In  1896  there  were  ten  cases  of  homicide  by  females,  as 
against  one  hundred  and  sixty-nine  by  males.  In  1886  eight 
women  and  one  hundred  and  six  men  were  arraigned  for 
homicide. 

In  considering  the  question  of  the  increase  of  crime  in  this 
country,  present  conditions  should  be  compared  with  the  recent, 
not  the  remote  past.  As  compared  with  the  classic  and  medieval 
epoch  of  history,  our  social  system  has  occasion  for  pride.  Pros- 
titution and  unnatural  vices  were  openly  practised  and  defended 
by  the  philosophers  of  ancient  Rome.  In  the  Middle  Ages  men 
were  chiefly  occupied  in  defending  their  lives  or  killing  others, 
while  women  busied  themselves  principally  in  protecting  them- 
selves against  outrage. 

The  era  of  the  Reformation  and  Puritanism  in  England  was 
so  repressive  of  happiness,  and  incidentally  of  immorality,  that 
a  reaction  of  absolute  moral  abandonment  finally  occurred.  This 
period  again  was  gradually  substituted  by  another  in  which  a 
certain  degree  of  moral  balance  prevailed. 

Whether  America  will  ever  pass  through  a  period  of  deca- 
dence, during  which  the  rapidly  increasing  vice  and  crime  of  the 
present  epoch  will  arrive  at  its  maximum,  is  open  to  question, 
but  statistics  are,  to  say  the  least,  suggestive.    Ancient  history 


SOCIAL    PATHOLOGY  33 

affords  precedent,  and  modern  France  is  striving  to  assist  history 
in  repeating  itself. 

In  the  consideration  of  the  vital  question  of  the  management 
of  the  criminal  class,  the  legislator,  the  penologist,  the  sentimen- 
talist, and  his  natural  ally,  the  social  reformer,  have  joined  hands, 
and  to  them  the  world  has  looked  in  vain  for  the  reformation 
they  have  blithely  promised.  Such  practical  treatment  as  the 
question  has  received  has  been  chiefly  in  devising  ways  and 
means  to  punish  the  criminal, — the  building  of  penal  institutions 
and  scaffolds,  with  the  expensive  law  machinery  that  leads 
thereto.  Society  has  said  to  the  criminal,  "  We  will  punish  you 
thus  and  so,  if  you  commit  such  and  such  crimes."  And  then 
society  has  set  about  devising  ways  and  means  to  save  the  elect 
from  its  own  laws,  and  has  split  hairs  to  such  an  exceeding  de- 
gree of  fineness  that  there  lies  between  the  thieving  corporation 
or  the  absconding  banker — who  lives  to  steal — and  the  petty 
larceny  fellow — who  steals  to  live — an  impassable  gulf;  one,  at 
least,  across  which  Mammon  alone  can  build  a  bridge. 

As  Wines  ^^  says, — 

"  Many  of  the  maxims  and  practices  of  the  business  world  are  essen- 
tially dishonest,  and  they  are  glibly  cited  by  convicted  criminals  in  justi- 
fication of  their  own  misconduct.  Criminal  law,  paradoxically  enough, 
often  catches  the  little  fish  and  lets  the  larger  ones  escape  through  its 
elastic  meshes." 

Our  prevalent  methods  of  criminal  management  are  largely 
based  on  tradition,  sentiment,  and  selfishness.  Society  should 
concern  itself,  not  so  much  with  the  criminal  as  he  is,  but  with 
the  conditions  that  produce  him.  The  habitual  criminal  is  in- 
deed a  "  fellow  by  the  hand  of  nature  marked,  quoted  and  signed 
to  do  a  deed  of  shame."  We  cannot  often  cure  or  reform  him, 
but  we  may,  in  a  measure,  prevent  his  propagation.  When  bred 
in  spite*  of  all,  we  may  prevent  the  development  of  his  innate 
criminal  tendencies  by  proper  training  and  protection  from  evil 
influences. 

"  Punishment  and  Reformation,  F.  H.  Wines,  LL.D. 
3 


34  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

Society  is  at  a  disadvantage  in  considering  the  criminal  of 
to-day  the  most  important  factor  of  the  crime  problem.  Dr. 
Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  struck  the  keynote  of  criminal  repres- 
sion when  he  suggested  that  we  reform  a  man  by  beginning  with 
his  grandfather. 

The  lack  of  interest  in  the  scientific  study  of  the  criminal  in 
America  is  easily  demonstrated.  Desiring  to  compare  observa- 
tions, I  recently  wrote  a  large  number  of  letters  with  formulated 
inquiries  to  the  chief  officers  of  the  principal  penitentiaries  of  the 
United  States.  The  paucity  of  answers  and  the  evidence  of  un- 
systematic and  superficial  observation,  although  not  a  matter  of 
wonderment,  were  very  suggestive.  In  some  instances  the  replies 
were  written  by  lay  officials,  in  others  by  prison  physicians. 
There  was  an  absolute  lack  of  homogeneity  in  observations.  The 
most  intelligent  and  valuable  letter  of  all  came  from  the  warden 
of  the  Wisconsin  State  Prison,  who,  though  a  layman,  is  evi- 
dently possessed  of  some  ambition  above  drawing  his  salary. 
Some  of  the  opinions  expressed  by  the  various  prison  physicians 
were  what  might  be  expected  from  men  whose  faculty  of  observa- 
tion and  generalization  has  not  yet  risen  to  the  plane  of  their  in- 
telligence. Havelock  Ellis  met  with  a  similar  experience  in  Eng- 
land. He  says,  "  Some  of  my  correspondents,  I  fear,  had  not  so 
much  as  heard  that  there  was  a  criminal  anthropology."  " 

So  far  as  reform  in  the  management  of  criminals  is  con- 
cerned, progress  has  been  slow,  and  by  no  means  uniform  in 
different  parts  of  the  world.  It  has  been  especially  slow  and 
unequal  in  the  various  States  of  the  Union.  Brutalizing  influ- 
ences and  barbarities  in  the  management  of  criminals  are  still  at 
work  in  this  supposedly  enlightened  country.  Prisoners  are  con- 
firmed in  crime  and  degraded  in  some  instances  below  the  level 
of  brutes, — almost  to  the  level  of  the  alleged  human  beings  who 
devised  the  beastly  system  of  criminal  management  and  reforma- 
tion. Practically  no  classification  of  criminals  is  made,  criminal 
contagion  being  allowed  to  go  on  unimpeded. 

The  State  of  New  Jersey,  for  example,  should  be  somewhat 

"  The  Criminal. 


SOCIAL    PATHOLOGY  35 

civilized  and  at  least  abreast  of  the  times  in  reformatory  methods 
and  institutions.  Here  is  her  status,  according  to  a  recent  pub- 
lication :  1*  "  The  county  jail  in  New  Jersey  as  a  school  for  crime 
is  a  great  success.  As  a  part  of  the  State's  correctional  pro- 
gramme, it  is  a  farce.  In  only  one  jail  of  the  State  is  employ- 
ment afforded.  In  the  entire  State,  except  eight  probation 
officers,  there  are  no  public  reformatory  influences  for  girls  and 
women.  Continual  recommitment  of  course  plunges  the  poor 
creatures  into  deeper  degradation.  Feeble-minded  girls  come 
again  and  again  to  the  alms-house  to  give  birth  to  feeble-minded 
children.  The  Prosecutor  of  Middlesex  characterizes  its  jail 
as  notoriously  insecure,  and  loaded  with  filth,  vermin,  and  disease 
germs.  Enforced  idleness  (the  inmates  are  not  even  compelled 
to  wash  themselves)  and  the  mixture  of  young  and  old  offenders 
add  to  the  horrors  of  this  medieval  barbarism  persisting  in  sup- 
posed civilization.  To  make  reform  impossible,  the  larger  the 
number  of  prisoners,  the  greater  the  profits  of  the  twenty-one 
sheriffs  of  the  State,  who  make  each  year  a  clear  profit  from 
board  of  prisoners  amounting  to  from  thirty  thousand  to  sixty 
thousand  dollars." 

Sad  to  relate,  New  Jersey  is  not  alone  in  her  horrible  methods, 
Mr.  George  Kennan,  the  noted  Siberian  traveller,  grows  maudlin 
over  the  horrors  of  the  prisons  in  which  exiles  and  criminals 
are  confined  en  route  to  Siberia.  He  describes  in  disgusting 
detail  the  dusky  red  dado  of  crushed  vermin  on  the  walls  of  these 
crude  prisons,  demonstrating  the  chief  nightly  occupation  of  the 
unfortunate  prisoners.  Captain  Powell,  of  the  Florida  Convict 
Camps,  shows  that  the  prison  stockades  in  that  State  are  pre- 
cisely like  the  Russian  kameras,  even  to  the  red  dado,  save  that 
in  the  latter  the  prisoners  are  allowed  the  freedom  of  the  room, 
once  they  are  locked  in,  while  ours  are  chained. ^'^  It  will  thus 
be  seen  that  such  points  of  difference  as  exist  are  in  favor  of  the 
Russian  system. 

The   foregoing   illustrations   of   the   horrors    and    primitive 

**  Charities. 

"  The  American  Siberia,  J.  C.  Powell, 


36  THE   DISEASES   OF   SOCIETY 

methods  that  still  exist  are  alone  a  sufficient  stimulus  to  the 
scientific  study  of  criminology,  leading,  as  it  does,  to  improve- 
ments in  reform  and  penal  systems  based  upon  a  better  under- 
standing of  the  nature  and  cause  of  criminality. 

The  repression  of  crime  should  be  practical.  Sentiment,  if 
exhibited  at  all,  should  be  in  behalf  of  honest  people,  not  the 
criminal.  The  maudlin,  hysterical  emotions  that  impel  fashion- 
able women  to  present  bouquets  and  frosted  cake  to  imprisoned 
criminals  should  yield  to  the  pressure  of  criminologic  ma- 
terialism. 

Mendicancy  and  crime  go  hand  in  hand  as  products  of  physi- 
cal and  social  degeneracy.  The  distinction  between  the  pro- 
fessional mendicant  and  the  criminal  cannot  often  be  drawn,  nor 
indeed,  is  it  logical  to  draw  it,  for  both  alike  are  fungi  upon  the 
body  social.  It  has  been  claimed  that  nine-tenths  of  the  mendi- 
cants seen  about  our  streets  have  criminal  records.  Most  of  them 
make  fraudulent  claims  to  sympathy  by  assuming  ailments, 
poverty,  and  deformities  that  do  not  exist.  That  the  professional 
hobo  steals  or  murders  on  occasion  is  well  known. 

America  has  for  many  years  furnished  conditions  peculiarly 
favorable  to  degeneracy.  The  strenuous  life  of  the  average 
American,  certainly  of  every  ambitious  citizen,  has  many  aspects 
bearing  upon  degeneracy  in  general,  and  vice  and  crime  in  par- 
ticular. Lust  for  wealth,  desire  for  social  supremacy,  ambition 
for  fame,  love  of  display,  late  hours,  lack  of  rest,  excitement,  the 
consumption  of  alcohol,  especially  by  women — all  these  factors 
combine  to  cause  what  Beard  termed  a  distinctively  American 
disease.^®  The  body  social  is  growing  more  and  more  neuro- 
pathic. In  the  train  of  this  widespread  neuropathy  comes  de- 
generacy, with  all  its  evil  brood  of  social  disorders. 

The  general  neuropathic  state  to  which  I  have  alluded  is  be- 
hind much  of  the  violence  of  the  American  mob,  and  also  some- 
times underlies  that  many-sided,  often  illogical  entity  called 
public  opinion,  in  its  attitude  towards  certain  social  conditions 
and  criminal  acts.     Special  environmental  conditions  operative 


"  American  Nervousness,  George  M.  Beard. 


•    SOCIAL  PATHOLOGY  37 

in  the  causation  of  crime  in  this  country  are  the  varying  phases 
of  the  struggle  between  capital  and  labor.  Here  the  relation  of 
degeneracy  to  crime  does  not  at  first  sight  seem  clear,  but,  as  will 
be  shown  in  the  special  chapter  devoted  to  that  subject,  de- 
generacy is  quite  as  potent  here  as  elsewhere  in  the  etiology  of 
crime.  Another  equally  important  special  factor  of  environment 
in  America  is  our  political  conditions.  All  political  and  gov- 
ernmental systems  offer  facilities  for  and  temptations  to  crime, 
but  the  political,  office-holding  "  thief  trust"  is  an  institution 
peculiarly  American. 

Yellow  journalism  is  not  to  be  forgotten  in  the  discussion  of 
etiologic  factors  of  crimes  that  are  distinctively  our  own. 

The  most  important  recent  advance  in  criminology  has  been 
developed  by  the  study  of  the  physical  and  psychic  peculiarities  of 
the  degenerate  classes,  of  which  the  criminal  is  chief.  Modern 
criminology,  however,  does  not  claim  that  deformities  and 
various  deviations  from  the  normal  type  are  necessarily  indicative 
of  criminal  tendencies.    In  brief,  its  tenets  are  these : 

1.  The  criminal  and  vice  classes  are  the  product  of  certain 
influences  of  heredity,  congenital  and  acquired  disease,  and  un- 
favorable surroundings  involving  pernicious  teaching  and  ex- 
ample, physical  necessities,  and  other  social  maladies. 

2.  These  influences  result  in  a  class  of  persons  of  low  grade 
of  development,  physically  and  mentally,  with  a  defective  under- 
standing of  their  true  relations  to  the  social  system  in  which  they 
live.  Such  persons  have  no  true  conception  of  that  variable  thing 
called  morality,  and,  in  the  case  of  the  criminal,  no  respect  what- 
ever for  the  rights  of  others,  save  in  so  far  as  it  may  be  compelled 
by  fear  of  punishment.  Some  become  criminals,  some  paupers, 
and  still  others  prostitutes,  inebriates,  or  insane. 

3.  These  subjects  are  characterized,  upon  the  average,  by 
certain  anomalies  of  development  that  constitute  the  so-called 
stigmata,  or  marks,  of  degeneracy.  In  them,  vice,  crime,  and 
disease  go  hand  in  hand. 

All  degenerates  are  not  criminals,  but  born  or  typic  criminals 
and  many  occasional  criminals  are  moral  or  physical  degenerates. 
The  apparent  physical  exceptions  to  the  rule  arc  not  necessarily 


38  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

exceptions.  Degeneracy  of  brain  and  nervous  structure  is  not 
always  manifested  by  external  peculiarities.  This  is  a  very  im- 
portant point  for  consideration  by  the  student  of  criminology. 

The  physical  peculiarities  of  criminals  will  be  considered  later 
on.  Some  are  very  important  and  have  a  practical  bearing  upon 
the  scientific  study  of  the  criminal ;  others,  again,  are  of  no 
moment  save  in  so  far  as  they  bear  upon  the  question  of  de- 
generacy as  a  whole.  Crooked  jaws,  twisted  heads,  and  de- 
formed ears  do  not  necessarily  indicate  a  criminal,  but  marked 
and  frequent  deviation  from  the  normal  type,  showing  with  espe- 
cial frequency  in  any  class  of  persons,  indicates  degeneracy. 
The  degenerate  is  not  necessarily  a  criminal,  any  more  than  a 
person  with  a  predisposition  to  tuberculosis  is  necessarily  a  con- 
sumptive. Degeneracy  may  develop  criminality,  prostitution, 
pauperism,  inebriety,  or  insanity.  From  the  ranks  of  the  de- 
generates these  classes  are  recruited.  It  may,  on  the  other  hand, 
develop  genius  of  high  order,  associated  or  not  with  a  healthy 
moral  balance. 

In  considering  the  abnormal  integers  of  society  MacDonald 
says," — 

"  If  the  average  man  in  the  community  is  taken  as  the  normal  type 
and  individuals  are  classified  according  to  their  degree  of  likeness  or 
unlikeness  to  him,  there  will  result  in  general  the  following  divisions : 

"  I.  The  normal  class  of  individuals,  who  greatly  exceed  all  other 
classes  in  number.  These  in  every  community  constitute  the  conservative 
and  trustworthy  element  and  may  be  said  to  be  the  backbone  of  the  race. 

"  2.  The  dependent  class,  as  represented  by  the  inmates  of  alms- 
houses, charity  hospitals,  asylums  for  orphans  and  the  homeless,  and 
similar  charitable  institutions. 

"  3.  The  delinquent  class,  found  in  all  penal  and  reformatory  insti- 
tutions. 

"  4.  The  defective  class,  comprising  the  insane,  feeble-minded,  idiotic, 
and  imbecile. 

"  5.  Men  of  genius  or  great  talent." 

After  considering  the  total  number  of  the  first  four  classes 
given  by  the  census  of  1880,  MacDonald  says, — 

"  Abnormal  Man,  Arthur  MacDonald. 


SOCIAL  PATHOLOGY  39 

"  This  will  give  an  idea  of  the  comparatively  small  number  of  dis- 
tinctively abnormal  individuals, — less  than  half  a  million  out  of  fifty 
million  inhabitants.  It  is  surprising  that  so  small  a  part  of  the  com- 
munity can  cause  so  much  trouble,  danger,  and  expense.  But  in  social 
mechanism,  as  in  mechanical,  one  little  part  may  throw  the  whole  into 
disorder.  Yet  the  importance  of  this  part  does  not  lie  in  itself,  but  in 
its  relations  to  the  others.  Thus  one  crank  or  one  criminal  can  throw 
a  whole  community  into  excitement,  often  causing  great  injury." 

It  has  been  tirged  that  the  modern  criminologist  has  been 
pointing  out  errors,  and  assuming  an  attitude  at  once  pessimistic 
and  iconoclastic,  but  that  nothing  has  come  of  it  all.  It  is  at  once 
admitted  that  our  results  have  been  meagre.  The  explanation  is 
simple,  however.  The  science  of  criminology  is  still  in  its  infancy. 
Its  weakness  does  not  lie  in  its  philosophy,  but  its  inability  to 
frame  and  enforce  laws  and  turn  philanthropy  into  the  proper 
channels.  It  can  only  blaze  the  way.  Legislators  will  follow  or 
not,  as  they  see  fit.  Great  reforms  in  the  way  of  prevention 
and  cure  of  crime  cannot  be  effected  save  by  a  combination  of 
scientific  sociologists,  wealthy  philanthropists,  and  intelligent 
legislators.  Society  is  selfish,  and  imbued  with  old  fallacies  and 
traditions.  Politics  is  corrupt  and  venal.  While  everybody  is 
interested  in  the  crimes  of  to-day,  the  average  man  takes  care  of 
himself,  and  grants  posterity  the  same  privilege.  The  result  is 
self-evident.  The  safety  of  the  society  of  to-morrow  depends  on- 
the  enthusiasm  and  intelligence  of  the  law-makers,  sociologists, 
and  penologists  of  to-day.  They  are  doing  very  little  to  support 
the  devoted  band  of  scientific  pioneers  who,  at  the  expense  of 
labor,  time,  money,  and  ridicule,  have  endeavored  to  place  crimi- 
nology on  a  firm,  logical  basis,  and  protect  society  against  itself. 
Maligned  and  misunderstood, — wilfully  misunderstood,  on  the 
one  hand,  and  ignorantly,  on  the  other  ;  wilfully  misrepresented,  on 
the  one  hand,  and  ignorantly,  on  the  other, — handicapped  by  the 
bad  logic  of  quasi  scientists,  the  modern  criminologist  has  fought 
his  way  towards  a  hearing  which  is  as  yet  almost  confined  to  the 
chosen  few.  The  public  looks  on  with  curious  eyes,  attracted  by 
the  novelty  of  the  subject,  while  stirtlcd  b^•  its  heresy.  The 
pulpit  is  rarely  in  genuine  sympathy   with   it.   while  our  law- 


40  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

makers,  jurists,  lawyers,  juries,  and  police  authorities  practically 
ignore  it.  When  the  lawyer  really  interests  himself  in  criminology, 
it  is  only  too  often  with  a  view  to  the  corruption  and  prostitution 
of  expert  testimony.  Even  were  our  judges  en  rapport  with  mod- 
ern criminology,  they  would  be  almost  helpless.  Under  present 
conditions  they  cannot  rise  above  the  politics  that  makes  them, 
nor  superior  to  the  traditions  and  customs  of  our  present  system. 

The  chief  reason  why  the  results  of  modern  scientific  crimi- 
nology have  been  meagre  is  the  short  time  that  advanced  ideas 
have  existed,  and  the  great  length  of  time  necessary  to  the  accom- 
plishment of  practical  results  along  philosophic  lines.  Lom- 
broso's  great  work  first  appeared  in  1876. 

Many  generations  will  have  passed  before  the  efficacy  of  the 
application  of  modern  ideas  can  be  fully  demonstrated.  The 
battle  against  degeneracy  could  not  be  won  in  a  day,  even  though 
the  scientist  had  the  full  co-operation  and  sympathy  of  the  public 
at  large. 

Despite  all  obstacles,  the  dawn  of  a  new  era  is  at  hand.  Some  of 
our  modern  reformatories ;  the  growing  sentiment  in  favor  of  the 
classification  of  criminals ;  the  establishment  of  juvenile  courts  and 
the  separation  of  youthful  from  adult  criminals ;  the  parole  system, 
and  the  increasing  favor  with  which  the  indeterminate  sentence 
is  regarded,  certainly  augur  well  for  the  future  development  of 
criminal  anthropology  and  a  still  more  enlightened  penology. 

Punishment  will  probably  always  have  a  certain  role  to  play 
in  criminal  repression,  yet  it  has  been  said  by  very  high  authority 
that  "the  time  will  come  when  every  punitive  institution  in  the 
world  will  be  destroyed,  and  be  replaced  by  hospitals,  schools, 
workshops,  and  reformatories."^^ 

When  prisons  are  so  regarded,  and  men  trained  in  psycho- 
logic, pathologic,  sociologic,  and  anthropologic  research  are  put 
p.t  their  head  and  allowed  full  scope  and  plenty  of  time  for  re- 
search, the  general  intelligence  of  mankind  will  have  moved  for- 
ward with  a  mighty  bound,  and  man's  humanity  to  man  will  have 
acquired  a  meaning  beyond  mere  wordy  sentiment. 


"  Year  Book,  Elmira  Reformatory,  Dr.  Hamilton  D.  Wey. 


CHAPTER   II 

THE   PRINCIPLES   OF   EVOLUTION    IN   THEIR   RELATIONS   TO   CRIMI- 
NAL   SOCIOLOGY    AND    ANTHROPOLOGY,    AND    TO    SOCIAL 
DISEASES    IN    GENERAL 

The  principles  of  evolution  have  been  so  generally  accepted 
by  progressive  thinkers  that  their  application  to  every  phase  of 
human  interests  is  almost  universal.  Anatomists,  sociologists, 
statesmen,  politicians,  psychologists,  and  churchmen  have  alike 
come  to  recognize  the  cogency  of  evolutionary  principles,  irre- 
spective of  personal  bias  due  to  scientific  dogmatism  or  creed 
bigotry.  Consciously  or  unconsciously,  the  moulders  of  modern 
thought  are  being  swayed  more  and  more,  as  time  passes,  by  the 
principles  enunciated  and  demonstrated  by  those  immortals  of 
science  who  have  stood  for  the  liberation  of  humanity  from  the 
ball  and  chain  of  ignorance,  dogma,  and  superstition.  The  in- 
tuitive perception  of  man  recognized  the  biologic  principle  in- 
volved in  the  theory  of  evolution  long  before  the  immortal 
Darwin  established  its  organic  proofs.  Early  in  the  thirteenth 
century,  Jalal-ad-Din,  a  Hindoo  poet  and  philosopher,  outlined 
the  entire  organic  scheme  of  evolution  in  some  sixteen  lines  of 
exquisite  verse.  There  was  no  flavor  of  pessimism  in  this  poem, 
which,  after  describing  the  evolution  of  the  inorganic  into  the 
organic,  and  of  vegetable  into  animal  life,  concludes : 

"  Then  the  great  Creator,  as  you  know, 
Drew  man  out  of  the  animal  into  the  human  state ; 
Thus  man  passed  from  one  order  of  nature  to  another. 
Till  he  became  wise,  and  strong,  and  knowing  as  he  is  now. 
Of  his  first  souls  he  has  no  remembrance, 
And  he  will  be  again  changed  from  his  present  soul." ' 


'  Book  IV.  of  Masnavi. 

41 


42  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

Here  was  the  earliest  recorded  hint  of  the  developmental 
possibilities  of  evolutionary  progression  in  human  affairs,  and 
especially  in  ethics. 

Evolution  was  suggested  by  Aristotle,  and  passed  on  to  pos- 
terity by  the  immortal  poem  of  Lucretius.  It  was  submerged  in 
the  obscurity  and  superstition  of  Hebrew  mythology  and  per- 
nicious philosophy  in  medieval  times,  and  was  rescued  by  the 
hand  of  Lamarck,  to  be  eventually  made  substantial  by  the  great 
Charles  Robert  Darwin.  All  honor  to  the  pioneers  of  philosophy 
and  science,  both  before  and  after  Darwin,  to  whose  labors  the 
present  status  of  evolution  is  due.  Treviranus,  the  poet-philoso- 
pher Goethe,  Erasmus  Darwin,  Wallace,  Emerson,  Spencer, 
Huxley,  Tyndall,  Haeckel, — what  a  galaxy  of  stars  for  the 
gallery  of  the  Immortals ! 

Look  where  we  may  over  the  field  of  human  progress,  we  see 
the  chariot  of  science  rolling  resistlessly  on,  impelled  by  the 
hands  of  those  great  workers  for  humanity  now  living  and  the 
spirits  of  those  numbered  with  the  dead.  Bigotry,  superstition, 
fallacious  scientific  dogma,  and  creed  have  alike  been  brushed 
aside,  until  now  he  who  would  intelligently  study  humanity  in 
any  of  its  relations  must  proceed  in  accordance  with  at  least  the 
fundamental  principles  of  evolution.  Evolutionary  principles  are 
as  potent  in  the  affairs  of  man  as  they  are  in  the  organic  world. 
Organic  continuity  is  the  ultimate  basis  of  all  vital  phenomena, 
and,  controlling  as  it  does  the  organic  constitution  of  man,  evolu- 
tion must  necessarily  control  his  psychology  and  sociology  in  all 
their  various  aspects. 


EVOLUTION    OF   CONSCIENCE,    MORALS,    AND   WILL 

The  evolution  of  vice  and  crime  is  inseparably  connected  with 
the  evolution  of  society,  beginning  with  its  most  primitive  form, 
— the  family.  The  evolution  of  society  is  in  turn  inseparable 
from  the  evolution  of  mind  and  morals,  and  that  human  attribute 
without  which  morals  would  have  been  an  unknown  quantity, — ■ 
conscience.  Before  communal  interests  began  to  rise  superior  to 
selfish  individual  interests,  crime,  in  the  strict  interpretation  of 


THE    PRINCIPLES    OF   EVOLUTION  43 

the  term,  was  unknown.  Pari  passu  with  the  development  of  the 
principle  of  social  defence,  criminal  codes  have  developed. 

In  speaking  of  conscience  as  a  human  attribute,  I  am  simply 
paying  deference  to  the  ordinary  acceptation  of  the  term,  chiefly 
because  criminal  sociology  is  concerned  only  with  the  human 
variety.  A  complete  understanding  of  the  evolution  of  con- 
science and  morals,  however,  is,  in  my  opinion,  impossible  with- 
out a  recognition  of  the  possession  of  a  rudimentary  capacity  for 
the  development  of  conscience  in  all  of  the  more  complex  orders 
of  animal  life,  lower  than  man  in  the  scale  of  development  and 
differentiation.  Hair-splitting  differentiations  of  the  higher  non- 
human  mammals  and  the  lower  orders  of  humanity,  from  the 
stand-point  of  "  soul"  and  conscience,  are  incomprehensible  to 
me.  Many  animals  occupy  a  higher  plane,  in  this  respect,  than  do 
the  lower  types  of  human  beings,  whether  the  latter  are  degraded 
because  they  have  never  evolved,  from  atavism,  or  degeneracy. 

Man  is  born  without  a  conscience,  but  with  a  greater  or  less 
capacity  for  its  development.  He  has  no  moral  sense  or  will  at 
birth,  but  has  a  varying  capacity  for  the  development  of  both. 
He  may  be  born  with  an  atavistic  incapacity  for  their  develop- 
ment that  harks  farther  back  even  than  the  types  shown  by  the 
animals  immediately  below  him  in  the  scale  of  life.  The  develop- 
ment of  man's  conscience  may  be  perfect  or  imperfect,  late  or 
early  in  life,  according  to  his  inherent  organic  quality  of  brain, 
and  the  environment  in  which  he  is  placed.  Once  developed,  the 
conscience  and  moral  sense  may  be  suddenly  or  gradually  abol- 
ished by  disease,  injury,  or  environment.  The  force  of  pernicious 
incidental  or  accidental  influences  is  modified  by  individual  and 
hereditary  brain  stamina  and  the  duration  of  the  evil  conditions. 

A  blow  upon  the  head  may  instantaneously  obliterate  the  con- 
science and  moral  sense, — indeed,  all  the  higher  attributes  of 
man, — while  leaving  his  vegetative  functions  unimpaired.  A 
hair  divides  the  "  soul"  attributes  of  man  from  the  brain  attributes 
of  the  lower  animals.  Once  the  higher  centres  of  ideation  are  in- 
hibited, the  soul  of  man  is  seemingly  helpless ;  he  sinks  lower  in 
the  mental  and  moral  scale  than  his  next  of  kin  among  the  lower 
mammals,  and  becomes  the  prey  of  his  animal  instincts.    These 


44  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

instincts  are  more  dangerous  than  in  the  brutes,  because  of  man's 
intellect,  which  gives  him  ambition,  a  multiplicity  of  desires, 
superior  cunning,  and  capacity  for  inventing  crime  and  ways  of 
escaping  its  penalties. 

As  is  the  law  of  organic  continuity  to  biology,  so  is  the  doc- 
trine of  conscience  evolution  to  sociology  and  psychology.  It  is 
the  only  logical  working  theory  of  development  of  the  qualities 
that  raise  the  mentality  of  man  above  the  dead  level  of  ordinary 
brute  intelligence.  Out  of  social  necessities  the  mind  has  evolved 
the  human  conscience.  From  the  conscience  of  the  individual  in- 
teger, that  of  society  has  gradually  developed.  The  young  of  the 
lower  animals,  the  primitive  infant,  and  the  child  of  civilization 
begin  life  on  a  parity,  from  the  stand-point  of  morals  and  con- 
science. They  differ  only  in  inherent  capacity  of  development, 
and  even  this  must  be  discounted  somewhat  when  we  consider  the 
possibilities  of  degradation  of  the  higher  type  and  elevation  of  the 
lower  by  environmental  influences.  If  each  were  kept  con- 
tinuously during  the  period  of  growth  in  an  environment  in 
which  it  would  not  be  influenced  by  the  actions  and  reactions 
incidental  to  association  with  others  of  its  kind,  the  difference  in 
conscience  and  morals  would  be  practically  unappreciable. 

The  adult  savage,  even  of  the  most  primitive  type,  has  a  con- 
science, such  as  it  is, — a  conscience  sufficient  unto  his  limited 
needs.  Theoretically  he  is  naturally  immoral,  perhaps,  from  the 
stand-point  of  civilized  man,  but  he  is  practically  more  moral 
because  of  his  ignorance  and  undeveloped  altruism.  For  the  very 
refinements  of  vice  and  crime  we  must  turn  to  civilization.  The 
category  of  vices  and  crimes  swells  with  advancing  civilization. 
Civilized  man  falls  farther  than  the  savage  when  he  sins  against 
society,  because  of  the  greater  strength  and  variety  of  his  inhibi- 
tions and  the  centuries  of  civilization  behind  him.  He  has,  of 
necessity,  farther  to  fall  and  a  greater  variety  of  moral  trans- 
gressions to  choose  from.  His  needs  are  greater,  his  habits  more 
complex,  and  he  is  the  victim  of  greater  stress  of  environment. 
The  pretty  fable  of  Eden  says  that  our  primitive  parents  knew 
no  sin  until  they  had  acquired  wisdom.  So  it  is  with  the  savage, 
in  a  measure.    No  race  of  savages  can  suddenly  become  a  civil- 


THE    PRINCIPLES    OF    EVOLUTION  45 

ized  entity,  and  the  more  we  attempt  to  civilize  and  Christianize 
it  along  the  customary  Hnes,  the  more  sinful  it  becomes.  Our 
American  Indian  gained  nothing  as  a  race  from  civilization.  He 
lost  his  manliness  and  self-respect  and  his  "  primitive"  standards 
of  truth  and  honor,  was  despoiled  of  his  property  and  his  right 
to  solve  the  problem  of  life  after  his  own  fashion,  and  received 
in  return  the  indigestible  unassimilable  theology,  fire-water,  loose 
morals,  and  multitudinous  diseases  of  his  conquerors. 

The  faults  of  the  savage  of  which  advancing  civilization  has 
chiefly  complained  have  been  due  in  the  main  to  his  opposition  to 
the  effort  to  despoil  him  and  adapt  him  to  a  civilization  in  which 
he  is  necessarily  a  misfit.  When  atavism  develops  the  moral  attri- 
butes of  the  savage  in  white  degenerates,  the  latter  simply  assume 
the  same  inharmonious  relations  to  civilized  society  as  is  occupied 
by  the  savage  of  to-day.  Could  our  own  savage  forebears  be 
brought  back  to  earth,  they  would  be  as  decidedly  out  of  harmony 
with  modern  civilization  as  is  any  extant  savage.  It  is  admitted 
that  the  capacity  for  assimilation  of  civilization  by  savage  races 
varies,  but  the  principle  holds  true,  and  is  nowhere  more  perti- 
nently illustrated  than  by  the  criminal  atavism  of  the  negro,  a 
race  that  has  shown  an  average  capacity  for  adaptation  to  civiliza- 
tion superior  to  almost  any  other  with  which  the  experiment  has 
been  tried  on  a  scale  extensive  enough  to  put  savage  adaptability 
to  the  crucial  test.  It  is  well  known  that  so-called  semi-civilized 
races,  like  the  Chinese,  while  less  criminal,  are  less  adaptable  than 
the  negro.  This  is  because  they  are  of  a  type  quite  as  highly 
differentiated  as  our  own,  which  passed  the  plastic  stage  of  adap- 
tability to  alien  civilization  centuries  before  the  conceited  Cau- 
casian had  arrived  at  a  plane  higher  than  that  now  occupied  by 
the  barbarian.  This  suggests  that  the  Chinaman's  ethics  would 
better  be  let  alone  ;  his  code  fits  him  better  than  would  ours,  and 
weighs  quite  as  heavily  in  the  balance  of  morals  and  conscience. 

The  Jolas  of  South  Africa  have  a  peculiar  social  system  in 
which  every  man  does  as  he  likes,  the  most  successful  thief  being 
the  greatest  man.  This  is  natural  enough,  and  is  pretty  close 
to  the  primitive  hw  of  self-preservation.  The  wolf  has  no  code 
of  morals,  neither  have  the  Jolas.    Whether  Jola  or  wolf  suffers 


46  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

in  comparison  with  civilization  is  largely  a  matter  of  view-point. 
Who  was  the  greatest  general  the  world  ever  knew,  not  even 
excepting  the  great  Alexander  or  Hannibal?  Napoleon  Bona- 
parte, who,  possessed  by  the  lust  of  conquest,  and  dominated  by 
an  almost  insane  ambition,  caused  more  murders  and  suffering 
than  any  character  in  history,  and  in  comparison  with  whom 
Herod  was  a  saint.  From  Joshua  down  the  wholesale  thief  and 
murderer  has  been  extolled  by  history,  both  sacred  and  profane, 
while  petty  thieves,  and  murderers  of  single  individuals  have  been 
hanged  or  incarcerated. 

Some  of  the  great  ones  of  our  own  social  system  are  men 
who  would  corner  the  earth  and  all  contained  therein,  if  they 
could  thereby  fill  their  own  pockets  and  escape  all  penalty.  The 
man  who  amasses  great  wealth  by  grinding  down  the  poor,  by 
cornering  the  necessities  of  life,  or  by  sucking  the  life-blood  out 
of  the  toiler  or  the  honest  farmer ;  the  unscrupulous  banker,  or 
dishonest  corporation  stock-jobber,  who  robs  his  credulous  dupes 
by  the  score  by  watering  stocks,  by  a  so-called  failure  or  an  actual 
defalcation, — these  are  among  the  great  "  Napoleons  of  Finance" 
and  respected  leaders  of  civilization.  The  savage  pays  reverential 
homage  to  the  chief  who  has  the  most  scalps  or  skulls  of  enemies 
as  trophies  of  his  prowess.  Civilized  man  doffs  his  hat  and  bows 
his  neck  to  the  man  who  has  the  millions, — the  scalps  and  skulls 
of  civiHzation. 

The  great  "  financier"  salves  his  conscience  and  prepares  for 
the  hereafter  by  giving  millions  to  charity — millions  recouped 
the  next  day  by  a  fractional  advance  in  the  stocks  he  controls. 
The  trust  of  which  he  is  king  may  be  one  of  the  most  gigantic, 
rapacious,  and  lawless  blood-suckers  that  ever  fastened  itself 
upon  a  civilized  people,  yet  his  wealth  and  his  beneficence  never- 
theless serve  to  put  him  beyond  the  pale  of  criminality. 

Scratch  ever  so  lightly  the  back  of  civilized  man. — remove  his 
inhibitions, — and  we  find  a  savage  and,  alas !  only  too  often  the 
wolf  behind  the  savage.  The  supposedly  respectable  persons  who 
turned  ghouls  and  robbed  bodies  at  the  Iroquois  Theatre  horror 
in  Chicago  serve  to  illustrate  the  point. 

And  yet,  that  a  moral  code  is  necessary  the  foregoing  illustra- 


THE    PRINCIPLES    OF   EVOLUTION  47 

tions  serve  merely  to  show.  The  downward  tendency  of  morals, 
which  tends  to  remove  man's  inhibitions  and  thwart  his  efforts  to 
attain  a  higher  ethical  plane,  is  the  foundation  of  the  social  neces- 
sity from  which  all  law,  human  or  divine,  has  been  evolved. 

Through  a  gradual  acquirement  of  a  knowledge  of  those 
things  which  are  best  for  the  common-weal  individual  conscience 
has  developed.  Altruism  is  the  social  coefficient  of  conscience, 
and  is  merely  the  application  to  the  conduct  of  the  individual  and 
the  government  of  society  the  knowledge  that  what  is  best  for 
all  is  best  for  the  individual. 

The  building  up  of  the  brain  and  nerve  faculties  of  man  is  ac- 
complished by  physical  and  moral  impressions  and  reflexes,  while 
the  brain  is,  so  to  speak,  in  a  plastic  state,  and  largely  through 
general  and  special  sensibility  acting  conjointly  with  the  emo- 
tions. Conscience  is  built  up  in  very  much  the  same  way  as  the 
reflex  functions  of  the  spinal  cord,  that  are  so  necessary  to  the 
preservation  of  the  higher  animals,  and  especially  of  man.  The 
response  to  what  may  be  termed  "  moral  reflexes"  builds  up  the 
conscience.  Like  the  reflex  action  of  the  spinal  cord,  conscience 
finally  becomes,  to  a  certain  extent,  automatic.  The  degree  of 
receptivity  and  response  of  the  brain  to  mental  and  moral  im- 
pressions may  thus  be  seen  to  be  very  important  in  the  develop- 
ment of  moral  sense  and  responsibility.  The  relative  dulness  of 
emotional  and  psychic  reflexes  and  the  sensory  and  motor  slug- 
gishness of  typic  criminals  and  moral  perverts  at  once  obtrude 
themselves  in  this  connection. 

Each  individual  in  society  fondly  imagines  that  he  is  re- 
sponsible for  his  actions  to  his  own  conscience  alone,  yet  the  bul- 
wark of  society  is  that  common  conscience  built  up  from  the 
interrelations  and  interactions  of  the  individual  conscience. 
Whether  consciously  or  not,  the  conscience  of  the  individual  must 
be  subordinate  to  that  of  the  social  body  of  which  he  is  a  part. 
Reduced  to  its  ultimate,  "  the  conscience  that  makes  cowards  of  us 
all"  is  simply  our  desire  for  the  good-will  and  appreciation  of  our 
fellow-man,  whether  modified  or  not  by  a  desire  for  the  appre- 
ciation of  Deity.  Were  it  primarily  an  entity  of  divine  origin, 
it  should  not  vary — its  standard  should  be  fixed  for  all  mankind. 


48  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

True  conscience  and  a  healthy  moral  sense  do  not  commence 
to  develop  until  the  child  begins  to  appreciate  the  wisdom  of  right 
thinking  and  right  acting  for  their  own  sake,  and  for  the  best 
interests  of  the  social  fabric  of  which  he  or  she  is  a  part.  There 
is  no  real  conscience  until  that  fundamental  principle  of  all 
morals,  justice  and  law,  that  bulwark  of  society,  "  One  indi- 
vidual's rights  extend  only  so  far  as  the  point  at  which  another's 
begin,"  becomes  an  integral  part  of  the  individual's  mentality. 
Practically  all  violations  of  moral  and  statutory  law  revolve 
around  the  violation  of  this  principle.  Just  as  this  principle  is 
itself  an  evolutionary  development,  so  criminality  is  largely 
atavism,  whether  the  atavism  be  social,  moral,  or  physical. 

The  varying  inherent  capacity  for  development  of  a  knowl- 
edge of  his  true  relations  to  his  environment  is  explanatory  of  the 
wide  difference  in  criminal  propensities  in  children.  Born  with 
the  predatory  instincts  of  the  monkey,  absolutely  ignorant  of  the 
question  of  nieum  and  tnum,  the  child  is  a  natural  thief, — he 
grasps  everything  about  him  that  his  primitive  instincts  impel 
him  to  crave.  Fear  of  punishment  finally  deters  him.  If  he  is 
normal,  this  is  replaced  later  by  a  consciousness  of  his  true  rela- 
tion to  his  environment  and  his  duty  to  those  around  him, — i.e., 
by  incipient  altruism.  In  some  children  this  is  slow  of  develop- 
ment; in  others  it  never  develops.  In  still  others  there  is 
primarily  no  capacity  for  development, — the  child  is  a  mental  or 
moral  imbecile,  or  both.  The  unfolding  of  the  moral  sense  is 
perfect  or  blighted,  according  to  environment.  The  coefficient 
of  the  born  moral  imbecile  is  the  child  who,  although  it  had  at 
birth  an  inherent  capacity  for  moral  development,  is  subjected 
to  training  and  example  that  dwarf  or  even  entirely  destroy  that 
capacity. 

The  fear  of  punishment,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  psychic 
shock  of  it,  on  the  other,  have  a  powerful  reformative  and  re- 
pressive eflFect  on  a  large  part  of  normal  and  a  smaller  proportion 
of  abnormal  humanity.  The  shame  of  exposure,  trial,  and  pun- 
ishment has  reformed  many  a  man.  Fear  and  shame,  in  general, 
may  stand  in  place  of  conscience.  Even  the  epileptic  insane  have 
been  known  to  exert  self-control  under  threat  of  removal  to  less 


THE    PRINCIPLES    OF   EVOLUTION  49 

congenial  surroundings,  as  from  a  ward  containing  mild  cases  to 
another  containing  severe  ones. 

Fear  rarely  works  well,  however,  in  the  born  criminal.  It  is 
deterrent,  but  not  reformatory.  He  has  no  shame  and,  if  re- 
pressed by  fear  alone,  relapses  into  crime  whenever  there  is  any 
assurance  of  safety  to  himself.  His  calculations  are  dominated 
entirely  by  the  questions  of  profit  and  safety  in  criminal  enter- 
prises. 

Under  normal  conditions,  simultaneously  with  the  develop- 
ment of  conscience  and  moral  sense  occurs  development  of  the 
will.  Inextricably  intermingled  with  the  vice  and  crime  problem 
are  the  varying  degrees  of  acuteness  of  moral  sense,  conscience 
and  strength  of  will.  Behind  all,  in  a  given  individual,  stand  the 
varying  conditions  of  development  and  health  of  the  centre  from 
which  emanate  all  intellectual  and  moral  attributes  of  man, — the 
brain.  Where  conscience,  moral  sense,  and  will  are  not  evenly 
balanced,  the  psychology  of  the  individual  is  seriously  disturbed. 
This  loss  of  equilibrium  is  responsible  for  many  moral  obliquities. 
The  will  may  be  feeble  and  the  conscience  and  moral  sense  strong, 
or  the  reverse.  Either  disturbs  the  morale  of  the  subject.  Chil- 
dren are  relatively  strong-willed,  yet  defective  in  moral  sense  and 
conscience.  Coevally  with  development,  the  normal  child,  under 
favorable  environmental  conditions,  gradually  acquires  cerebral 
equilibrium. 

Woman  in  many  respects  resembles  the  child  in  her  emotional 
instability,  but  her  will  is  relatively  weak,  so  that  she  is  often  very 
like  the  child  in  her  disregard  of  property  rights,  selfishness,  and 
utter  lack  of  altruism.  The  exceptional  strong-willed  woman  is 
unfortunately  usually  a  degenerate  with  virile  tendencies,  and 
often  with  strong  criminal  propensities.  Conscience  and  moral 
sense,  and  especially  moral  bias  from  religious  suggestion,  are 
keen  in  woman,  but  not  strong,  because  dominated  by  a  hyper- 
developed  ego,  unstable  and  powerful  emotions,  a  defective  appre- 
ciation of  altruism,  and  a  weak  will.  Centuries  of  dependence 
upon  the  stronger  individuality  of  man  has  had  much  to  do  with 
woman's  psychology.  Her  relatively  weak  ccrcliral  orc^aniza- 
tion  is,  in  a  sense,  a  physiologic  atrophy  from  disuse.     This  is 

4 


50  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

explanatory  of  the  lack  of  individualism  in  women, — i.e.,  their 
psychic  uniformity.  Exposure,  since  the  human  family  began,  to 
this  same  lack  of  stimulus  to  cerebral  independence  has  resulted 
in  what  is  practically  a  psychic  dead  level.  With  the  advent  of 
the  "  New  Woman,"  a  change  has  begun,  but  alas !  the  increased 
brain  capacity  which  woman  must  surely  acquire  must  inevitably 
be  paid  for  in  infertility  and  physical  degeneracy. 

The  mistake  is  often  made  of  attributing  moral  transgressions 
entirely  to  impairment  of  will,  as  if  man  were  instinctively  moral 
in  tendency  and,  when  he  does  not  follow  his  moral  impulses, 
simply  lacks  the  will  to  follow  them.  This  is  a  serious  mistake. 
Moral  obliquity  may  be  the  result  of  powerful  volition.  The  will 
to  commit  breaches  of  social  ethics  may  be  as  strong  in  one  indi- 
vidual as  the  will  not  to  commit  them  is  in  another.  Right  acting, 
indeed,  may  require  no  effort  of  the  will  whatever.  It  may  be, 
and  perhaps  usually  is,  automatism  built  up  from  a  well-de- 
veloped conscience  and  moral  sense,  with  no  conscious  effort  in 
its  application.  The  power  of  temptation  is,  of  course,  greatest 
with  individuals  of  relatively  weak  wills,  but  it  is  to  be  remem- 
bered that  the  removal  of  inhibitions,  other  than  the  will,  are 
alone  necessary  to  criminal  acts.  These  inhibitions  once  re- 
moved, the  action  of  the  will  may  be  necessary  to  the  commission 
of  such  acts.  This  is  the  only  germ  of  truth  in  the  Calvinistic 
doctrine  of  free  will. 

Freedom  of  will  is  impaired  by  disease,  especially  of  the  brain, 
it  is  even  modified  by  the  diet  and  various  social  and  industrial 
conditions.  The  weather  has  a  certain  influence.  Emotional 
disturbance  is  especially  likely  to  impair  the  will.  A  will  domi- 
nated by  passion  at  one  time  may  be  a  free  and  independent 
factor  at  another.  Under  stress  of  emotional  excitement  may  be 
committed  crimes  in  the  prevention  of  which  an  active  effort  of 
the  will  would  be  required. 

MORALS    AND    CONSCIENCE    IN    THE   LOWER    ANIMALS 

A  knowledge  of  the  gradual  upbuilding  of  the  moral  sense 
and  its  alter  ego,  conscience,  with  the  various  conditions  that 
favor,  retard,  or  entirely  prevent  their  growth,  or  destroy  them 


THE   PRINCIPLES    OF   EVOLUTION  51 

after  they  have  developed,  constitutes  the  corner-stone  of  the 
sciences  of  sociology  and  criminal  anthropology. 

The  innate  capacity  for  development  of  what,  in  their  prac- 
tical operations,  are  essentially  mind,  morals,  and  conscience  is 
not  restricted  to  the  human  race.  The  lower  animals  possess  it 
in  a  lesser  and  varying  degree.  The  view  that  animals  reason  is 
supported  by  so  many  facts  that  none  but  the  most  hopeless  bigot 
can  dispute  it.  Only  the  egotistic  assumption  of  the  divinity  of 
origin  and  soul  entity  of  man  stand  in  the  way  of  the  universal 
acceptance  of  mind  as  an  attribute  of  all  the  higher  animals. 
Were  the  distinction  between  mind  and  intellect  made  more  clear, 
the  differences  of  the  human  and  lower  animal  types  would  be 
seen  to  be  due,  not  to  monopoly  of  mind  by  man,  but  to  a  prac- 
tical monopoly  of  intellect.  The  moral  faculties  are  distinctly 
faculties  of  the  mind,  yet  man  and  lower  animals  alike  are  swayed 
by  them.  Grief,  hatred,  love,  shame,  discontent,  satisfaction, 
jealousy,  gratitude,  revenge,  magnanimity,  desire,  fear,  anger, 
and  joy,  are  not  human  attributes  alone — all  of  the  higher  animals 
possess  them. 

Up  to  a  certain  point,  the  moral  training  and  development  of 
conscience  of  the  child  and  that  of  the  dog,  cat,  or  any  other 
animal  susceptible  of  education  revolve  around  the  same  pivot, — 
namely,  self-preservation.  There  is  a  wholesome  fear  of  conse- 
quences which  answers  for  conscience.  This  is  almost  as  far  as 
the  lowest  savages  or  the  lower  animals  ever  get.  They  get  no 
farther  when  left  to  themselves,  although  certain  exceptions, 
under  training  by  civilized  man,  show  that  an  inherent  capacity 
for  conscience  development  exists  in  some  animals.  It  is  as  far  as 
many  civilized  beings  who  are  under  the  dominance  of  theology 
ever  get.  Right  acting  does  not  necessarily  mean  right  thinking. 
What  passes  for  conscience  and  moral  sense  in  some  individuals 
is  merely  "  dog  conscience."  In  man,  a  wholesome  fear  of  dam- 
nation, on  the  one  hand,  and  the  promise  of  a  halo  and  a  harp,  on 
the  other,  stand  in  lieu  of  the  whip  of  punishment  and  the  bone 
of  reward  in  the  dog's  conception  of  ethics. 

The  principle  involved  here  is  a  very  important  one  in  soci- 
olog>'.     With  a  large  proportion  of  the  human  race  fear  is  the 


52  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

only  effective  inhibition  on  criminal  impulse.  Powerful  emo- 
tions, such  as  jealousy,  sexual  excitement,  anger,  and  such  drugs 
as  alcohol,  may  remove  this  inhibition  and  leave  the  individual  to 
be  swayed  by  his  brute  instincts  alone.  The  inhibition  of  fear 
may  be  also  removed  by  assurance  of  safety  in  the  commission  of 
crime.  Were  it  not  for  the  inhibition  of  fear  upon  human  con- 
duct, both  church  and  state  would,  even  now,  be  almost  helpless 
in  the  presence  of  vice  and  crime.  Both  have  wrought  individual 
good,  however  they  have  failed  to  prevent  an  increase  in  the 
aggregate  of  crime.  The  state  operates  through  fear  alone,  the 
church  holds  out  in  addition  the  hope  of  reward.  In  these 
modern  days,  when  the  church  is  gradually  assuming  its  highest 
function,  the  teaching  of  ethics  rather  than  of  theology,  the  body 
religious  is  doing  more  and  more  in  the  inculcation  of  right 
thinking,  and  consequently  of  right  acting,  from  altruism  rather 
than  fear. 

Reverting  to  the  question  of  mentality  in  the  lower  animals, 
it  cannot  be  denied  that  their  so-called  instinct  drifts  very  easily 
over  the  hazy  line  of  demarcation  separating  it  from  reason. 
Dogs,  cats,  horses,  and  seals  learn  by  experience  to  determine  the 
relation  of  cause  and  effect,  and  develop  what  in  its  practical 
operations  is  a  moral  sense.  The  dog's  instinct  impels  him  to 
kill  sheep,  but  he  can  be  taught  to  know  the  enormity  of  the 
crime  and  even  to  guard  his  master's  flocks.  He  may  develop  a 
policy  sense,  which  so  often  masquerades  as  moral  sense  in  human 
beings,  for  he  sometimes  jealously  protects  his  master's  flocks, 
yet  makes  nocturnal  excursions  to  neighboring  fields  and  kills 
sheep  without  mercy.  It  is  noticeable  that  the  mongrel  who  has 
been  taught  sheep-herding  is  most  likely  to  be  a  thief  and  mur- 
derer abroad.  Of  all  dogs,  he  is  closest  allied  to  his  wolf  an- 
cestry, and  he  falls  a  victim  to  atavistic  impulses  most  readily. 

The  cat  instinctively  kills  and  eats  birds,  yet  the  animal  can  be 
taught  to  respect  one's  canary.  I  once  had  a  beautiful  female  cat 
who  used  to  kill  the  neighbor's  chickens  and  canary  birds  and 
bring  them  home  triumphantly,  laying  them  before  her  kittens 
with  due  and  proper  maternal  pride  and  joy.  When  the  neigh- 
bors accused  the  cat  of  her  multitudinous  crimes,  I  took  a  boyish 


THE    PRINCIPLES    OF   EVOLUTION  53 

pride  in  proving  her  alibi  by  showing  that  she  mingled  freely 
with  my  own  little  chicks  and  allowed  my  pet  canaries  to  alight 
upon  her  back  with  apparent  good  nature.  I  recall  a  partnership 
the  old  cat  formed  with  a  little  bantam  hen  who  had  adopted  a 
huge  Shanghai  chicken,  and  was  vainly  endeavoring  to  protect  it 
from  the  cold.  The  cat  was  wont  to  lie  in  the  sun  with  the 
fledgling  snuggled  against  her  fur.  On  the  other  side  of  the 
chick  lay  the  little  bantam,  with  a  single  wing  covering  her 
charge  as  well  as  might  be. 

But  I  never  could  teach  my  feline  pet  that  my  correctionary 
measures  meant  all  birds.  She  was  a  sort  of  specialist  in  the 
killing  business,  and  could  not  be  taught  to  reason  broadly. 

For  unselfish  devotion  the  lower  animals  put  the  average  of 
the  human  species  to  the  blush.  The  sentiment  so  sweetly  ex- 
pressed by  Darwin  is  well  worthy  of  remembrance, — 

"  I  would  as  soon  be  descended  from  that  old  baboon,  who  came 
down  from  the  mountains  and  carried  off  his  young  comrade  from  a 
crowd  of  ferocious  and  astonished  dogs,  or  from  that  heroic  little  monkey, 
who  braved  his  dreaded  foe  to  save  his  keeper's  life,  as  from  a  cannibal 
who  practises  heathen  rites,  commits  infanticide  without  remorse,  and 
treats  his  multiplicity  of  wives  like  beasts." 

The  social  instincts  of  the  lower  animals  are  almost  too  famil- 
iar to  require  mention.  Paleontology  lends  an  element  of  pathos 
to  this  primitive  animal  trait.  The  fossil  remains  of  mammoth 
and  mastodon  show  how  those  huge  animals  of  ancient  days 
huddled  together  for  protection  from  enemies  and  the  elements. 
Among  the  lower  animals  true  communism  of  interests  is  found. 
The  selfish  and  sordid  ambition  of  man  does  not  enter  and  dis- 
harmonize nature. 

It  should  be  remembered  that  "  there  is  no  real  hiatus  in  the 
evolutionary  chain  of  nervous  phenomena  which,  beginning  with 
the  simple  reflex  movement  of  the  ameba  or  carnivorous  plant, 
advances  along  the  continuously  converging  lines  of  so-called 
animal  instinct  and  human  reason,  and  terminates  in  those  won- 
derful phenomena  manifested  by  the  brain  of  civilized  man, 
which  responds  in  such  a  multiplicity  of  ways  to  innumerable 
stimuli."    The  wide  gap  between  the  two  extremes  can  be  blotted 


54  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

out  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  by  disease  or  injury  of  the  brain. 
And  the  disease  may  exist  at  birth,  aye,  before  birth,  so  that  the 
human  being  is  but  an  imbecile,  with  purely  vegetative  functions. 
The  layman  who  does  not  understand  this  point  would  do  well  to 
visit  an  asylum  for  imbeciles  and  study  types.  To  repeat,  then, 
the  lower  animals  and  man  are,  as  Pope  expressed  it,  alike  sub- 
ject to  those  emotions  of — 

"  Love,  hope,  and  joy,  fair  Pleasure's  smiling  train. 
Hate,  fear,  and  grief — the  family  of  Pain. 
Which,  mixed  with  art  and  to  due  bounds  confined, 
Make  and  maintain  the  balance  of  the  mind." 

Granting  the  possession  of  certain  qualities  of  mind  in  the 
lower  animals,  it  is  still  incontestable  that  the  acts  of  man  are 
dominated  more  clearly  than  theirs  by  reason — the  conscious  ad- 
justment of  means  to  ends.  The  higher  the  race  of  man  under 
normal  conditions,  the  greater  the  development  of  the  moral 
sense  and  conscience.  Even  in  the  most  primitive  type  of  man, 
however,  a  crude  conception  of  ethics  exists.  The  native  of 
Borneo  and  the  black  of  the  Australian  bush  have  no  other  in- 
terests in  life  than  eating  and  drinking,  yet  they  have  words  to 
express  violations  of  the  coarser  principles  of  ethics. 

I  have  said  that  the  higher  the  race  of  man,  the  greater  his 
inhibitions,  "  under  normal  conditions."  Advance  in  civilization 
is,  however,  not  necessarily  coeval  with  progress  in  ethical  stand- 
ards. After  a  certain  point  is  reached,  the  luxury,  appetite  ex- 
haustion due  to  satiety,  and  unhygienic  life  of  civilization  bring 
brain  and  body  degeneracy  in  their  train,  and  t)T>e  reversions  are 
more  frequent.  History  shows  that  extinction  of  entire  social 
systems  may  result.  That  centre  of  civilization,  France,  is  to- 
day trembling  at  the  handwriting  on  the  wall. 

The  objectionable  features  of  the  sexual  habits  of  the  lower 
animals  are  seen  in  the  two  extremes  of  social  development, — i.e., 
among  primitive  savages  and  the  degenerate  aristocracy  of 
modem  society.  Were  it  not  for  the  partial  restoration  of  balance 
by  the  great  middle  classes,  race  degeneracy  would  soon  cause 
the  speedy  extinction  of  civilized  man. 


THE    PRINCIPLES    OF   EVOLUTION  55 

Reasoning  from  the  foregoing  premises,  the  relation  of  ata- 
vism to  the  criminal  and  vicious  tendencies  of  civilized  man  may 
be  readily  appreciated.  The  more  highly  organized  the  nervous 
system, — after  what  may  be  termed  the  normal  equilibrium  has 
been  attained, — the  more  unstable  it  becomes  and  the  more  likely 
the  gap  between  the  savage  and  ultra-civilized  man  is  to  be  sud- 
denly closed.  This  line  of  reasoning  is  supported  by  the  fact 
that  in  our  strenuous  modern  life  all  the  results  of  degeneracy, 
including  social  disorders,  are  on  the  increase.  At  the  other  ex- 
treme— i.e.,  in  individuals  of  the  lower  strata  of  civilized  com- 
munities— the  nervous  organization  is  less  complex,  and  the 
hiatus  between  them  and  primitive  man  is  primarily  narrow. 

AMBITION 

The  most  distinctive  faculty  of  the  human  mind  is  ambition. 
This  is  a  most  complex  attribute,  the  well-springs  of  which  are 
fed  by  every  human  interest.  The  relative  degree  and  quality  of 
ambition  determine  the  progression  or  retrogression  of  the  indi- 
vidual. Upon  individual  progression  that  of  society  ultimately 
depends.  The  quality  of  ambition  is  regulated  by  the  desire 
which  actuates  it  and  by  the  moral  sense  of  the  subject.  It  may 
be  stimulated  by  cupidity  or  avarice,  love  of  power,  love  of 
family,  or  a  desire  to  excel,  animated  on  the  one  hand  by  sheer 
egotism,  or  on  the  other  by  a  desire  to  develop  one's  self  to  the 
limit  of  one's  capacity  as  a  personal  and  social  duty.  Sexual 
love,  with  its  desire  to  attract  and  hold, — either  by  the  spreading 
of  the  peacock's  wings  or  by  proving  worthiness, — may  feed  this 
source  of  ambition.  The  dread  of  poverty  and  a  desire  for  in- 
dependence are  among  the  stimuli  which,  singly  or  combined, 
develop  it. 

Ambition  makes  for  individual  and  social  progress  only  when 
its  possessor  is  normally  balanced.  Though  worthy  in  itself,  it 
may  still  lead  to  criminal  acts,  if  the  subject  be  not  possessed  of  a 
normal  conscience.  Even  so  laudable  an  ambition  as  that  inspired 
by  a  desire  to  provide  luxuries  for  one's  family  may  be  a  feeder 
for  crime,  where  the  moral  equilibrium  of  the  ambition-driven 
subject  is  defective.    Ambition  fed  by  sexual  love  has  filled  many 


56  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

a  convict  cell.  Ambition  developed  by  avarice,  or  love  of  fame 
and  power,  has  made  nations  shed  their  blood  and  tears  like  rain. 
The  murderous  and  venal  ambition  of  many  of  the  military 
assassins  and  robbers  of  history  was  in  no  wise  different  from 
the  sordid  lust  of  the  modern  financier.  The  industrial  press  is 
not  so  noisy  as  the  shot  and  shell  of  battle,  but  it  squeezes  out  the 
tears  and  blood  of  the  toiling  millions  just  the  same. 

Ambition  and  discontent  are  twin  qualities  of  the  mind.  Con- 
tentment is  the  natural  quality  of  the  cud-chewing  ox,  and  does 
not  make  for  progress.  The  discontent  of  humanity  is  the  seed 
from  which  civilization  has  sprung. 

Ambition  and  will  go  hand  in  hand.  It  is  questionable 
whether  ambition,  be  it  good  or  bad,  is  possible  to  him  who 
dreams  and  does  not  act.  The  most  laudable  ambition  is  in- 
nocuous, aye,  it  is  but  a  mental  cobweb,  where  the  will  necessary 
to  its  gratification  is  lacking.  The  great  spur  of  ambition  is 
necessity,  but  even  necessity  cannot  drive  a  weak  and  vacillating 
will.  Whether  ambition  results  in  great  crimes  or  in  great  good 
deeds,  the  individual  will  be  found  to  be  a  forceful  character. 
The  petty  thief  is  not  impelled  by  it.  The  colossal  swindler 
usually  is,  and  has  the  force  of  character  necessary  to  carry  out 
his  nefarious  plans.  There  are  strong  characters  among  crimi- 
nals as  well  as  among  honest  men.  The  forceful  character  and 
industry  of  some  criminals,  if  applied  in  proper  channels,  would 
place  them  among  the  nations'  great.  "  A  hair  divides  the  false 
and  true,"  sings  Omar.  Certain  influences  may  divert  the  force 
of  a  strong  character  in  the  direction  of  criminality.  Witness  the 
previously  honest  and  successful  business  man  who  suddenly  be- 
comes a  defaulter  or  embezzler  under  acute  stress  of  financial 
necessity  or  great  temptation.  Great  inherent  capacity  for  good, 
and  the  force  of  character  that  makes  great  men,  also  make  great 
criminals.    One  of  the  best  historic  examples  is  Aaron  Burr. 

THE   SPECIFIC    GRAVITY   OF    MORALS 

Inasmuch  as  morals  and  conscience  have  developed  from  the 
social  necessities  of  the  human  race  and  are  not  natural  attributes, 
from  the  biologic  stand-point,  there  is  necessarily  what  may  be 


THE    PRINCIPLES    OF    EVOLUTION  57 

termed  a  specific  gravity  of  morals.  By  virtue  of  this,  ethics 
tends  to  sink  to  a  lower  level  w^hen  inhibitions  are  removed.  The 
specific  gravity  of  morals  varies.  It  is  greater  in  woman  than  in 
man,  because  of  her  relatively  feeble  will  and  because  the  in- 
fluence of  man  comes  into  play  as  a  factor  in  her  moral  retro- 
gression, on  the  one  hand,  and  her  progress,  on  the  other.  It  is 
obviously  greater  in  the  child  than  in  the  adult.  Its  power  is 
inversely  to  age,  under  normal  conditions,  at  least  until  senility 
appears.  Its  potency  is  lessened  as  cerebral  equilibrium  is  estab- 
lished. It  is  greatest  in  individuals  of  primarily  defective  brain. 
The  specific  gravity  of  morals  is  antagonized  by  pride,  ambition, 
selfishness,  egotism,  religious  sense,  and  the  concatenation  of  all 
these  qualities.  The  socially  modified  instinct  of  self-preserva- 
tion— the  very  instinct  that,  under  primitive  conditions,  impels  to 
crime — antagonizes  the  specific  gravity  of  morals. 

Morals  is  peculiar  in  that,  like  the  price  of  stocks,  it  tends  to 
fall  by  its  own  weight,  whereas  special  conditions  or  effort  are 
necessary  to  make  it  rise.  Proper  education  operates  against  the 
specific  gravity  of  morals.  Vicious  education  enhances  its  power. 
The  same  may  be  said  of  congenital  or  acquired  disease  and 
vicious  inheritance;  in  short,  of  all  factors  that  tend  to  remove 
inhibitions. 

That  there  is  a  general  intuitive  appreciation  of  the  specific 
gravity  of  morals,  a  general  lack  of  confidence  in  the  social  in- 
hibitions of  civilization,  is  evidenced  by  the  demand  for  surety  on 
the  part  of  employers  in  positions  of  trust,  and,  above  all,  by  the 
prosperity  of  the  various  bond  and  surety  companies. 

VARIATIONS    IN    MORAL   STANDARDS 

Much  of  the  moral  advance  of  the  human  race  has  revolved 
around  the  relations  of  the  sexes.  Marriage  is  one  of  the  most 
important  products  of  human  social  evolution.  Marriage  cus- 
toms have  in  general  been  modified  by  the  conditions  of  the  par- 
ticular social  system.  Every  advance  made  in  the  ethics  of  mar- 
riage has  been  at  the  expense  of  a  battle  with  natural  law  and 
animal  impulse.  The  integrity  and  moral  plane  of  the  family  are 
the  key-stone  of  our  civilized  social  fabric,  but  the  struggle  to 


58  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

maintain  monogamy  has  been  a  fierce  one,  and  is  still  going  on 
beneath  the  surface.  Atavism — moral,  physical,  intellectual,  and 
social — is  continually  struggling  against  expediency  and  social 
policy, — i.e.,  against  social  altruism.  Nowhere  in  the  range  of 
vice  and  crime  is  the  specific  gravity  of  morals  so  great  as  in  the 
field  of  sexuality.  Nowhere  will  atavism  more  intelligently  ex- 
plain breaches  of  social  ethics  than  in  the  category  of  sexual  vice 
and  crime.  This  assertion  may  be  unwelcome,  but  it  is  as  true  as 
natural  law. 

Gloss  the  facts  over  as  we  may,  the  inhibitions  of  social  and 
moral  progress  upon  sexuality  are  feebler  than  elsewhere  in  the 
entire  field  of  human  affairs.  Many  men  and  women  have  within 
them  the  germs  of  impulse  to  steal  and  slay ;  all  normal  men  and 
women  have  within  them  the  germ  of  impulse  to  breaches  of 
sexual  ethics.  It  is  purely  a  question  of  control,  the  elements  of 
which  are  easily  overthrown.  Preach  as  we  may,  philosophize  as 
we  may,  legislate  as  we  may,  there  is  in  every  human  breast  a 
subtle  sympathy  for  sexual  offenders  against  moral  and  statutory 
law.  The  only  exceptions  are  the  rapist,  seducer  of  the  young, 
and  sexual  pervert,  and  even  here  the  sexuality  of  man  in  gen- 
eral is  responsible  for  the  revulsion  of  feeling  against  the 
offender.  In  the  case  of  seduction,  the  application  of  Madame  de 
Stael's  satirical  definition  of  chivalry  as  "  the  spirit  which  impels 
a  man  to  defend  a  beautiful  woman  against  everybody  but  him- 
self" is  often  not  far-fetched.  The  laws  of  man  are  often  a 
reflex  of  his  desires  to  put  a  check  upon  evil  impulses,  the  ex- 
istence of  which  in  human  nature  he  recognizes  by  introspection. 
The  same  sort  of  morality  inspires  the  drunkard  who,  wishing  to 
reform,  locks  the  demijohn  in  the  cupboard  and  gives  the  key  to 
his  wife.  He  knows  the  power  of  persuasion,  and  reserves  the 
right  to  persuade  when  the  impulse  occurs.  He  may  take  the  key 
by  force  and  arms  if  he  so  wills.  Man  has  so  little  confidence  in 
human  morality  and  conscience  that  he  must  needs  formulate 
laws  to  protect  himself  from  himself. 

That  the  vast  diflFerence  betw^een  modern  and  primitive  court- 
ship and  marriage  has  in  general  made  for  the  betterment  of  the 
race  is  evidenced  by  certain  atavistic  phenomena.     The  Sene- 


THE    PRINCIPLES    OF    EVOLUTION 


59 


gambian  warrior,  who  stuns  the  maiden  of  his  choice  with  his 
club  and  drags  her  otf  to  his  kraal  to  become  his  wife,  is  con- 
fessedly not  an  up-to-date  lover,  but  he  is  the  forebear  of  that 
atavistic  product,  the  wife-beater,  who  indulges  his  playful  pro- 
pensities only  after  the  preacher  and  a  license  have  confirmed 
matrimony  as  an  institution  that  permits  his  being  commander  of 
the  situation.  The  difference  between  the  "  civilized"  wife- 
beater  and  the  savage  is  largely  that  the  latter's  ideas  of  post  hoc 
ergo  propter  hoc  are  a  bit  scrambled.  Whether  the  difference  in 
matrimonial  standards  is  altogether  in  our  favor  is  a  question. 
The  ultra-cultured  maiden  no  longer  dreams  of  the  bravest  and, 
according  to  his  lights,  the  most  accomplished  chieftain  of  the 
tribe.  She  sits  in  a  festooned  and  frescoed  perfumed  bower, 
dreaming  of  a  foreign  title,  the  possessor  of  which  has  a  pocket  as 
empty  as  his  brain-pan,  and  vices  that  are  only  outnumbered  by 
the  constitutional  taints  he  possesses ;  or,  perchance,  she  yearns 
for  the  shekels  and  maravedis  of  Lord  Money-Bags.  In  either 
event  the  laws  of  nature  are  not  her  chief  concern,  nor  is  she 
fretting  about  maternal  potentialities  and  prospects — -not  she. 

The  evolution  of  class  in  society  has  had  much  to  do  with  vice 
and  crime.  From  time  immemorial  the  seriousness  of  violations 
of  the  rights  of  man — which  rights  are  the  foundation  of  all  law 
— has  depended  largely  on  whose  ox  was  gored.  Backed  by  the 
clergy,  or  standing  alone,  the  reigning  class  has  ever  discrimi- 
nated in  its  own  favor  and  against  the  proletariat.  Times  have  so 
changed  that  the  under  dog  has  begun  to  have  his  day.  And  yet 
the  equality  of  under  and  upper  dog  before  the  law  is  more  theo- 
retic than  real,  even  now.  and  in  America,  the  paradise  of  free- 
dom and  equality.  The  under  dog  has  an  equal  chance  if  he  has 
money  enough  to  hire  as  good  a  lawyer  and  pay  as  much  costs  as 
the  upper  dog.  The  poor  murderer  is  likely  to  be  hanged  in  six 
weeks  or  so,  if,  indeed,  he  is  not  lynched.  The  rich  one  may 
stave  off  the  issue  for  several  years,  and  perhaps  get  acquitted. 
The  same  principle  governs  the  treatment  of  the  extremes  in 
social  standing  among  thieves.  Poverty  may  be  wrong  in  law 
where  wealth  is  treated  as  if  it  were  synonymous  with  right. 

The  fact  that  morals  is  a  product  of  human  brain  evolution  is 


6o  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

in  itself  a  proof  that  morals,  and  consequently  standards  of  crime, 
must,  of  necessity,  be  a  relative  matter.  The  history  of  civiliza- 
tion and  the  comparative  study  of  extant  races  prove  this  point. 
Certain  forms  of  crime  and  immorality  in  a  given  social  system 
may  be  atavistic  reversions  to  a  social  type  in  which  the  same  acts 
are  neither  immoral  nor  illegal.  In  brief,  what  is  reversion  in 
one  social  system,  or  in  one  race,  may  be  normal  in  another, — 
normal  because  the  moral  code  and  social  expediency  have  never 
evolved  beyond  a  more  or  less  primitive  stage.  Morals  has  been 
said  to  be  largely  a  matter  of  geography.  The  "  Unspeakable 
Turk"  sees  no  immorality  in  a  multiplicity  of  wives,  yet  Chris- 
tian society  does  not  agree  with  him,  whatever  a  certain  propor- 
tion of  its  human  integers  may  hold  in  their  innermost  thoughts 
and  impulses.  The  vices  and  crimes  of  one  generation  may  be 
virtues  in  the  next,  and  vice  versa.  The  ancient  patriarchs  were 
often  godly  men,  although  they  numbered  their  wives  and  concu- 
bines by  the  hundred.  Theology  sanctioned  polygamy  in  the 
olden  time,  but  theology,  like  everything  else,  has  yielded  to  the 
pressure  of  social  expediency. 

The  Bhattias  of  India  regard  dining  at  a  hotel  as  a  greater 
sin  than  murder.  It  is  a  sin  that  should  bring  its  own  punishment 
at  some  hotels.  Among  the  Mohammedan  Wahhabees  murder  is 
a  trifling  irregularity  compared  with  the  use  of  tobacco,  yet  the 
cheap  cigar  has  never  invaded  their  domain.  Among  some  sav- 
ages it  is  not  a  crime  to  murder  a  woman  belonging  to  another 
tribe,  yet  it  is  a  capital  offence  to  marry  one  within  the  warrior's 
own  tribe.  Here  is  the  forebear  of  the  wise  modern  laws  against 
consanguineous  marriages, — the  only  sensible  step  thus  far  taken 
by  society  in  the  regulation  of  marriage. 

Within  a  few  decades  the  moral  sense  of  civilization  has 
undergone  some  very  radical  changes.  The  capital  crimes  of 
modern  days  bear  no  comparison  in  multiplicity  with  those  of 
former  times,  in  which  human  impulse,  civil  greed,  and  ecclesi- 
astic dictum  and  venality,  together  with  a  low  general  average 
of  intellectuality  and  refinement,  conspired  together  to  multiply 
crimes  and  invent  atrocious,  illogical,  and  disproportionate  pen- 
alties.   Civilization  has  not  yet  forgotten  the  hanging  of  men  and 


THE    PRINCIPLES    OF    EVOLUTION  6i 

women  for  petty  thefts ;  the  life-long  imprisonment  of  debtors ; 
the  abuse  of  that  sometimes  salutary  correctionary  device,  the 
whipping-post ;  public  exposure  in  the  stocks ;  hanging  in 
chains  and  on  gibbets ;  bonfires  built  of  unfortunate  old  women, 
whom  theology  branded  as  witches,  and  other  peculiarities  of  a 
social  system  not  yet  sufficiently  remote  to  reflect  complimentarily 
upon  human  nature  and  intelligence.  Indeed,  we  do  not  have 
to  go  farther  back  than  our  own  day  to  find  evidence  of  atavism 
in  this  direction,  on  the  one  hand,  and  a  lack  of  evolution,  upon 
the  other.  The  prison  stockades  of  the  South  and  the  modern 
lynching  of  the  negro,  with  its  kerosene  oil  and  torch  accom- 
paniment, are  distinctly  reversionary,  at  least  in  the  case  of 
lynching.  The  prison  stockade,  like  many  other  unintelligent 
and  brutal  punitive  methods,  merely  evidences  non-progression 
in  social  evolution  in  most  instances. 

Such  improvement  in  ethics  as  has  occurred  has  been  due 
to  a  gradual  evolution  of  morals  and  conscience,  and  a  progres- 
sive development  of  altruism,  which  are  a  reflection  of  a  higher 
intellectual  development.  That  progress  along  various  sociologic 
lines  has  not  been  due  to  divine  inspiration  is  obvious.  We,  per- 
force, cannot  accept  the  view  that  such  inspiration  could  have 
been  primarily  defective  and  unintelligent,  and  therefore  sus- 
ceptible of  improvement  by  human  intervention  and  adaptation 
to  human  needs.  Nor  can  we  believe  in  the  dealing  out  of  pri- 
marily complete  divine  inspiration  in  gradually  increasing  doses, 
pari  passu  with  social  and  intellectual  progression. 

Within  the  memory  of  the  present  generation  of  free-born 
Americans,  slavery  was  held  to  be  a  divine  institution,  and  was 
defended  from  many  pulpits.  It  was  for  years  defended  and 
made  a  source  of  commercial  profit  by  the  very  section  of  the 
country  through  whose  agency  it  was  finally  abolished  as  a  recog- 
nized institution.  The  Northern  conscience  on  the  slavery  ques- 
tion had  as  its  foundation,  so  far  as  the  power  which  eventually 
abolished  it  was  concerned,  economic  thrift.  Sympathy  with  the 
institution  waned  as  its  profits  decreased. 

It  is  an  open  question  as  to  whether  morals  has  most  im- 
proved society,  or  society  most  improved  morals.    The  action  and 


62  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

reaction  of  society  upon  morals  and  of  morals  upon  society  have 
been  the  essence  of  moral  growth.  To  increasing  knowledge  the 
honor  is  due.  To  it  alone  can  justly  be  attributed  the  evolution 
of  morals.  Take  away  from  civilization  the  knowledge  it  has 
acquired  with  the  passing  of  the  years,  and  society  in  its  entirety 
would  revert  to  the  low  standards  of  the  bloody  and  frightful 
past  of  savagery  or,  if  not  to  this  extreme,  to  the  conditions  that 
prevailed  when  the  average  of  men  blindly  accepted  theologic 
domination. 

Science,  the  goddess  from  whose  loins  knowledge  has  sprung, 
has  been  the  fountain  of  inspiration  from  which  all  social  good 
has  come.  Evolution  has  been  the  key-note  of  moral  progress. 
It  is  the  grand  principle  that  will  one  day  verify  the  truth  of  the 
Italian  proverb,  "  All  the  world  is  one  country."  Evolution  will 
one  day  turn  our  forts  into  schools,  and  our  cannon  and  battle- 
ships into  railroad  iron.  In  that  day  men  will  no  longer  be 
seeking  better  and  speedier  methods  of  cutting  each  other's 
throats,  or  blowing  each  other  into  everlasting  nothingness. 
When  society  has  evolved  a  code  of  moral  ethics  which  teaches 
that  all  those  things  are  sinful  that  physically  impair  the  useful- 
ness of  the  individual  to  himself  and  the  social  fabric  and  work 
injury  to  the  common  good  of  humanity,  then,  indeed,  will  the 
altruistic  millenium  have  arrived, — this  providing  due  attention 
is  paid  to  the  cultivation  of  those  physical  attributes  which,  in 
their  perfection,  make  a  keen  appreciation  of  altruism  possible. 
The  child  who  is  taught  to  be  true  to  himself  upon  altruistic 
grounds  is  likely  to  be  true  to  humanity,  if  he  has  the  faculty  of 
comprehension  of  the  principles  that  should  govern  the  indi- 
vidual in  his  relations  to  the  common  weal.  So  far  as  social 
integrity  is  concerned,  this  sort  of  selfishness  on  the  part  of  the 
individual  is  healthy. 

While  fear  of  punishment  and  hope  of  reward  have  had 
something  to  do  both  for  and  against  moral  progression,  they 
have,  after  all,  been  mere  incidentals — in  many  instances,  un- 
avoidable evils  and  temporary  impedimenta  in  the  evolution  of 
morals.  True  morality  must  come  through  a  perfect  intelligence. 
The  youth  who  is  taught  that  it  is  sinful  to  get  drunk  or  commit 


THE    PRINCIPLES    OF    EVOLUTION  63 

other  actions  which  society,  as  a  whole,  condemns,  and  whose 
ideas  are  so  developed  that  they  revolve  entirely  around  an  arbi- 
trary standard  of  the  relative  morality  of  such  acts,  is  in  an  un- 
safe position.  Especially  is  he  unsafe  if  examples  are  continu- 
ally put  before  him  of  individuals  whom  the  world  calls  great, 
and  who  are  considered  brilliant  examples  of  what  civilization 
can  do  in  intellectual  development,  yet  are  openly  defiant  of  the 
same  arbitrary  code  of  moral  law  to  which  he  is  coerced  to  con- 
form. 

THE  RELATION  OF  THEOLOGY  AND  RELIGION  TO  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION 

The  relations  of  theology  and  religion  to  the  evolution  of 
morals  and  conscience,  and,  in  general,  to  immorality  and  crime, 
are  most  important.  That  various  systems  of  theology  and  re- 
ligion have  had,  and  are  having,  an  effect  in  moulding  the  morals 
and  conscience  of  the  race  is  admitted ;  that  they  have  had  an 
evil  influence  in  various  epochs  and  in  various  ways  cannot  be 
denied.  The  necessity  of  religion,  as  distinguished  from  the- 
ology, in  our  present  state  of  society  is  primarily  freely  admitted. 
That  it  is  not  without  influence  as  a  deterrent  of  vice  and  crime, 
and  in  the  field  of  reformation,  is  also  admitted.  The  relations 
of  religion  and  theology  to  morals,  and  especially  to  the  crime 
question,  are  so  intricate  and  complex  that  no  attempt  will  be 
made  to  present  anything  more  than  such  generalities  as  socio- 
logic  and  psychologic  science  justify.  A  brief  discussion  of  the 
evolution  of  religion  and  theology  is  obviously  necessary  to  the 
comprehension  of  the  principles  of  evolution  of  society  and  the 
human  mind  in  its  complex  aspects. 

Morals  and  theology  are  quite  popularly  confounded,  yet  they 
are  similar  and  distinct  social  entities.  They  have  been  confused 
because  the  human  mind  has  not  recognized  morals  as  an  evolu- 
tionary product,  but  chiefly  as  a  system  of  ethics,  founded  on 
divine  command.  That  theology  has,  in  many  instances,  formu- 
lated moral  principles  which  are  undeniably  salutary,  and  which 
make  for  social  advancement,  has  been  an  additional  element  of 
confusion. 

The   criminal   tendencies  of   man   were   recognized   by   the 


64  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

earliest  sacred  historians.  The  earliest  history  of  crime  involved 
infraction  of  divine  law,  the  foundation  of  primitive  social  law. 
That  this  history  was  inaccurate  does  not  nullify  the  proposition 
that  the  early  writers  had  a  definite  conception  of  what  human 
nature  must  have  been  at  the  beginning.  Obviously,  this  con- 
ception was  based  upon  a  knowledge  of  what  human  nature  was 
in  their  own  epoch.  According  to  the  book  of  Genesis,  the  first 
crime  committed  by  man  was  desiring  to  know  the  truth.  God 
had  given  him  permission  to  eat  the  fruit  of  all  the  trees  in  the 
Garden  of  Eden  save  that  of  the  Tree  of  Knowledge.  He  dis- 
obeyed and  was  punished.  This  first  crime  and  its  retribution 
were  the  basis  upon  which  all  criminal  law  was  originally 
founded.  In  the  eyes  of  some  disciples  of  orthodoxy,  the  pursuit 
of  knowledge  has  been  a  capital  crime  ever  since.  The  church, 
on  the  one  hand,  and  civil  authority,  on  the  other,  have  pro- 
fessed to  act  as  the  Almighty's  proxy  from  time  immemorial. 
Most  often  church  and  state  have  co-operated.  Their  crimes 
against  man,  perpetrated  as  punishment  for  alleged  or  real  in- 
fraction of  presumptive  laws  of  God,  are  a  blot  upon  humanity's 
scroll  that  time  has  only  made  blacker.  The  divorce  of  church 
and  state  in  the  most  advanced  social  systems  has  improved 
criminal  jurisprudence  and  penology,  although,  in  a  measure,  the 
old  sentiment  prevails.  No  distinct  advance  in  penology  and  hu- 
mane moral  codes  was  ever  made  until  the  functions  of  church 
and  state  were  separated  as  social  factors. 

The  erroneous  view  of  morals  promulgated  by  crude  systems 
of  theology  may  have  had  its  influence  in  inhibiting  the  conduct 
of  the  brutal  and  ignorant,  through  the  domination  of  fear,  but 
this  inhibition  upon  crime  has  been  more  than  counterbalanced 
by  the  evil  use  to  which  it  has  been  put  by  frauds,  imposters, 
fanatics,  and  venal  authority,  both  church  and  civil.  One 
Spanish  Inquisition,  one  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew,  a  single 
heretical  bonfire,  or  a  single  instance  of  oppression  of  an  entire 
people  through  the  assumption  of  God-given  rights  by  a  monarch, 
should  have  been  enough  to  condemn  the  entire  system  of  the 
brutal  application  of  alleged  divine  command.  The  history  of 
the  comparatively  recent  pnst  shows  hundreds  of  such  damning 


THE    PRINCIPLES    OF    EVOLUTION  65 

incidents.  The  extremes  to  which  various  theologic  creeds  have 
carried  their  interpretation  and  appHcation  of  divine  law  are  only 
too  familiar.  Murder  and  robbery  have  flourished  in  the  shadow 
of  cross  and  crescent  alike.  The  God  of  Mohammed  commanded 
the  Faithful  to  "  kill  the  Christian  dog."  The  God  of  Abraham 
and  Isaac  said,  through  the  mouth  of  the  crusader,  "  Kill  the 
dog  of  a  Mohammedan,  and  steal  all  that  he  hath."  The  Chris- 
tian of  the  orthodox  Russian  Church  of  to-day  has  an  open 
season  for  killing  Jews. 

Robbery  and  murder  in  the  name  of  the  church  have  marked 
the  trail  of  theology  through  every  social  system.  The  possession 
of  a  different  creed  by  one's  neighbor  was  once  a  general  war- 
rant for  confiscation  of  his  property  and  cutting  his  throat.  The 
Scriptures  set  the  pace,  and  civilization,  with  the  Bible  in  one 
hand  and  a  sword  in  the  other,  has  invaded  the  domains  of  alien 
races  and  robbed  and  slain  them  without  mercy.  Civilized  man 
has  ever  justified  himself  by  saying,  "  This  heathen  was  less  pious 
than  I,  and  less  intelligent.  I  could  make  better  use  of  his  prop- 
erty than  he;  therefore,  I  slew  and  robbed  him."  The  con- 
querors of  Mexico  and  Peru,  and  the  American  people  in  its 
relations  to  the  Indian,  were  animated  by  the  same  spirit.  That 
the  spirit  is  not  yet  dead  was  shown  by  the  attitude  of  England 
towards  the  Boer,  the  treatment  of  China  by  the  other  nations, 
and  the  recent  murder  of  Jews  at  Kishenev,  Russia.  Wherever 
civilized  man  sees  something  he  wants  to  steal  he  finds  serious 
flaws  in  the  owner's  refinement,  education,  and  religion,  and 
particularly  in  his  method  of  handling  his  own  property. 

It  is  not  long  since  the  murder  of  thousands  in  the  name  of 
religion,  to  do  away  with  dififerences  of  religious  opinion,  was 
a  virtuous  and  honorable  course.  Such  things  should  not  occur 
to-day,  save  among  the  insane,  yet  they  do  occur,  and  the  world 
stands  idly  by  or,  at  most,  voices  a  feeble  protest. 

But  it  would  be  unfair  to  judge  the  influence  of  the  church 
to-day  in  the  field  of  morals,  and  especially  in  its  relations  to 
crime,  by  the  records  of  the  crude  systems  of  theology  of  the 
past.  To  deny  the  value  of  the  work  done  by  many  broad- 
minded,  noble  men  and  women  among  religious  sects  would  be 

5 


66  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

as  absurd  as  it  would  be  unfair.  Time  was  when  the  evils  of 
orthodoxy  and  fanaticism  well-nigh  submerged  all  the  good  that 
could  possibly  come  from  religion  in  any  form.  Under  modern 
conditions  and  in  Christian  communities  all  this  is  changed.  The 
orthodox  church  no  longer  officially  slays  heretics  nor  devises 
tortures  for  criminals.  The  Church  of  Rome  places  an  inhibition 
on  conduct  which,  conjoined  with  fear  of  the  law,  is  to  a  certain 
degree  deterrent  of  crime.  Even  fanatical  sects  have  their  sphere 
of  usefulness.  The  Salvation  Army  is  doing  a  noble  work. 
Some  expounders  of  peculiar  and  fanatical  creeds  are  shepherds 
of  degenerates  and  powerful  factors  for  practical  moral  good, 
whatever  their  faults.  They  are  leaders  of  men — and  a  class  of 
men  who  need  a  will  more  powerful  than  their  own  to  keep 
them  on  the  straight  and  narrow  path.  They  divert  vacillating 
minds  into  safe  channels.  Psychic  exaltation  leading  to  religious 
conversion  has  cured  many  a  drunkard,  prevented  crime,  and 
reformed  many  a  malefactor, 

Theology  cannot  justly  claim  to  have  civilized  man ;  civili- 
zation, however,  has  given  some  social  systems  an  endurable  the- 
ology, and  society  and  religion  have  acted  and  reacted  upon  each 
other  in  the  upward  path  towards  enlightenment.  The  indi- 
vidual who  does  not  acknowledge  that  extant  illustrations  prove 
the  intelligence  of  a  race  to  be  inversely  to  the  degree  to  which 
theology  dominates  it,  knows  nothing  of  sociology,  and  still  less 
of  ethnology  and  anthropology. 

It  has  been  said  that  an  honest  man  is  the  noblest  work  of 
God.  It  has  been  said  more  truly  that  a  worthy  God  is  the 
noblest  work  of  man.  The  original  gods  and  devils  were  the 
creations  of  the  hand  and  brain  of  man,  and  sufficed  for  his  needs. 
With  advancing  civilization,  the  quality  of  gods  improved,  and 
their  number  diminished.  The  heathen  gods  and  devils  were, 
and  are,  remorseless  destroying  powers,  to  be  propitiated  only 
by  sacrifices. 

As  intelligence  increased,  the  monotheistic  and  monodia- 
bolistic  view  became  paramount.  This  view  of  Deity  and  devil 
has  become  more  and  more  fixed  with  the  passing  of  the  years. 
Intellectual  evolution  has  modified,  not  only  our  conception  of 


THE    PRINCIPLES    OF    EVOLUTION  ej 

Deity,  but  also  our  ideas  of  tlie  devil.  The  latter  is  likely  to  be 
eventually  eliminated  altogether. 

As  the  monotheistic  idea  of  the  Supreme  Power  behind  the 
throne  developed,  He  did  not  at  once  lose  all  the  evil  attributes  of 
the  gods  of  polytheism.  He,  too,  must  be  propitiated.  The  sacri- 
fices of  Bible  times  are  sufficiently  familiar.  Scripture  shows  that 
the  God  conceived  by  the  minds  of  early  men  had  some  very 
peculiar  attributes.  He  dispensed  plagues,  showed  special  favors 
to  certain  nations,  conversed  with  men,  performed  miracles,  and 
many  other  horrible  and  wonderful  things,  inconsistent  with 
modern  ideas  of  a  good,  kind,  loving,  and  impartial  ruler  of  the 
universe.  These  things  he  no  longer  performs.  Has  he  changed, 
or  has  intellectual  evolution  discarded  the  old  and  constructed 
new  ideas  of  Deity?  The  God  of  Abraham  and  Isaac  and  his 
moral  code  no  longer  fit  civilization.  Theology  has  evolved,  like 
everything  else,  and  the  line  of  demarcation  between  theology  and 
religion  has  grown  clearer  with  the  lapse  of  ages. 

With  a  low  and  degraded  state  of  civilization,  low  and  de- 
graded ideas  of  Deity  should  be  expected.  With  advancing 
civilization  these  primitive  theologic  conceptions  could  not  lavSt, 
The  expounder  of  theology  is  fast  becoming  replaced  by  the 
teacher  of  ethics,  who,  with  a  better  understanding  of  Christ, 
the  greatest  of  ethical  teachers,  takes  modern  humanity  and  its 
needs  as  his  theme.  Civilized  man  neither  requires,  nor  will  he 
tolerate,  a  reign  of  theologic  terror.  He  is  no  longer  the  victim 
of  ignorant  fear.  He  has  delved  in  nature's  secrets  and  learned 
the  true  nature  of  phenomena  he  once  thought  supernatural. 
His  intellect  is  disenthralled,  and  he  is  thinking  for  himself. 
The  religious  frenzy  of  the  savage  and  the  imagination  of 
his  successor,  the  theologic  fanatic,  have  alike  been  engulfed 
in  the  ocean  of  progress.  Science  has  so  far  modified  theology 
that  the  theory  of  hell-fire  and  damnation  will  soon  be  but  a 
memory. 

Creeds  will  pass,  but  religion  in  some  form,  adaptable  to  our 
needs  and  harmonious  with  advanced  thought,  will  always  be 
with  us.  It  is  a  reflex  of  that  ego  which  is  not  contented  with 
the  prospect  of  oblivion.    It  is  the  outgrowth  of  the  feeling  which 


68  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

animates  a  large  proportion  of  humanity,  that  there  is  something 
beyond  the  compass  of  human  knowledge. 

As  that  sweetest  of  singers,  John  Boyle  O'Reilly,  wrote : 

"  Not  in  their  reason,  our  clear  illusion, 

But  truer  than  truths  that  are  measured  and  weighed, 
O  land  of  the  Spirit,  where  no  intrusion 
Of  bookmen  or  doubters  shall  aye  be  made." 

Theology  and  religion  are  of  service  in  morals  and  conduct  in 
direct  proportion  as  they  have  become  adapted  to  our  knowledge 
of  natural  phenomena.  Through  such  adaptation  they  may  work 
hand  in  hand  with  the  sociologic  scientist  and  criminologist  to 
better  the  evolution  of  human  morals  and  antagonize  social  dis- 
ease. There  is  no  room  for  a  system  of  theology  or  a  concrete 
religion  that  is  not  a  reflex  of  the  intellectual  status  of  the  people 
or  of  the  social  system  which  it  seeks  to  dominate. 

THE    EVOLUTION    OF    LAW 

The  evolution  of  law  has  been  coeval  with  social  progres- 
sion, as  a  whole.  The  greatest  epoch  in  the  history  of  the  law 
was  the  time  when  men  first  began  to  think  seriously  of  divorcing 
church  and  state.  A  comprehensive  discussion  of  the  evolution 
of  law  does  not  come  within  the  scope  of  this  volume.  Suffice  it 
to  say  here  that,  side  by  side  with  the  other  factors  in  sociology, 
law,  and  especially  criminal  law  and  the  penalties  it  prescribes, 
has  grown  more  and  more  intelligent,  and  freer  and  freer  from 
the  ancient  dogmas  and  cruelties.  The  English  common  law, 
which  is  the  foundation  of  the  legal  system  in  vogue  in  Christian 
countries,  is  to-day  the  embodiment  of  the  rights  of  man.  How- 
ever much  it  may  be  distorted,  perverted,  and  subverted  to  the 
venality  and  stupidity  of  some  lawyers,  clients,  and  courts,  its 
fundamental  principles  are  unassailable.  The  differences  between 
the  principles  of  English  Common  Law  and  the  Golden  Rule  are 
intangible. 

HEREDITY    AND   SOCIAL    EVOLUTION 

One  of  the  most  powerful  factors  in  evolution  is  heredity. 
It  is  of  especial  potency  in  the  evolution  of  crime.    The  question 


THE    PRINCIPLES    OF   EVOLUTION  69 

of  the  heredity  of  physical,  intellectual,  and  moral  traits  has  been 
threshed  over  until  one  would  suppose  that  its  influence  would 
now  be  generally  taken  for  granted.  There  are  those,  however, 
who  dispute  it,  especially  with  reference  to  vice  and  crime.  The 
various  pros  and  cons  of  the  discussion  do  not  concern  us  here  ;  a 
few  of  the  more  practical  points  and  some  pertinent  illustrations 
will  suffice.  Other  illustrations  of  the  influence  of  heredity  will 
appear  later. 

To  deny  the  influence  of  heredity  in  criminal  evolution  is  to 
deny  a  biologic  law  that  he  who  runs  may  read.  If  it  does  not 
hold  good  in  criminology,  then  it  fails  everywhere  else.  Many  of 
the  great  men  and  women  of  the  world  have  owed  much  to 
hereditary  traits,  or  to  hereditary  peculiarities  of  nervous  physi- 
ology that  made  their  distinctive  individual  traits  possible.  The 
inheritance  of  high  intellectual  endowemnts  is  usually  claimed  to 
be  from  the  maternal  side.  Behind  the  mother,  however,  is 
usually  to  be  found  a  sturdy  old  grandfather,  to  whom  she  owes 
her  mental  constitution.  Son  like  mother,  daughter  like  father, 
is  not  a  bad  rule,  many  exceptions  though  there  be. 

Inherited  genius  may  be  associated  or  not  with  degeneracy. 
It  often  is.  Inherited  great  intellectual  power — dependent  upon 
the  development  and  constitution  of  the  frontal  cerebral  lobes — 
may  be  associated  with  a  relatively  low  moral  sense,  the  posterior 
lobes  dominating. 

Brilliant  men  and  women  not  infrequently  spring  from  low- 
grade  ancestors,  but  if  the  investigation  be  carried  far  enough, 
an  alien  strain  will  usually  be  found  somewhere  along  the  line 
of  descent.  An  occasional  sport  is  found  in  nature,  it  is  true, 
but  fundamental  law  is  against  the  likelihood  of  a  thoroughbred 
cropping  out  in  a  mongrel  herd,  or  a  mongrel  among  thorough- 
breds. Where  such  an  outcropping  does  occur,  either  something 
alien  has  been  introduced  in  the  line  of  hereditary  succession, 
or  special  factors  of  degeneracy  have  intervened. 

The  question  of  heredity  is  a  most  complicated  one.  The 
streams  of  blood  which  focalize  in  a  given  individual  are  of  such 
complex  origin  that  one  grows  dizzy  in  the  attempt  to  follow 
them  to  their  source.     So  complex  is  the  composition  of  a  given 


70  THE   DISEASES   OF   SOCIETY 

family  tree,  that  it  is  unsafe  to  say  much  about  specific  influences 
of  heredity  after  several  generations  have  been  surveyed  in 
retrospect.  Obviously,  consanguinity  rapidly  compounds  the 
force  of  heredity. 

The  influence  of  heredity  should  always  be  considered  rela- 
tively to  environment.  The  force  of  heredity  is  often  discounted 
by  environmental  influences.  The  combined  influences  of  hered- 
ity and  environment  in  the  production  of  degeneracy,  disease, 
and  crime  are  demonstrated  by  many  familiar  examples. 

Dr.  Ireland  has  presented  evidence  sufficient  to  convince  any 
thinking  man  that  the  aristocracy  of  the  Old  World  is  heredi- 
tarily defective.^ 

His  unmerciful  handling  of  "  The  House  of  the  Romanoffs" 
was  so  true  that  the  sale  of  the  book  was  prohibited  throughout 
the  Russian  domain.  Not  that  the  aristocracy  per  se  is  more 
liable  to  viciousness  than  any  other  class  of  people  similarly 
situated.  Unbridled  license,  idleness,  and  the  possession  of  un- 
limited resources,  especially  when  associated  with  consanguinity 
or  inbreeding,  are  enough  to  account  for  the  physical  and  moral 
corruption  of  the  dominant  element  in  European  society.  Louis 
II.,  the  mad  King  of  Bavaria,  art  dilettante,  patron  of  arts,  and 
the  friend  of  Wagner,  and  the  late  King  Alexander,  of  Servia, 
were  typic  degenerates.  The  degeneracy  of  the  latter  should  be 
evident  to  the  most  superficial  observer.  Ribot  has  shown  re- 
markable examples  of  inherited  predilection,  not  only  for  crime 
in  general,  but  for  certain  special  forms  of  crime  and  vicious 
impulse.' 

The  problem  of  heredity,  so  voluminously  discussed  by  Zola 
in  his  Rougon-Macquart  series,  has  been  reduced  to  cold  statis- 
tics by  Professor  Poellmann,  of  the  University  of  Bonn.  He  has 
investigated  the  lives  and  characters  of  the  descendants  of  a 
woman  who  was  a  confirmed  drunkard,  and  who  died  early  in 
the  last  century.  The  five  or  six  generations  of  her  direct  pos- 
terity number,  to  date,  eight  hundred  and  thirty-four  persons. 

*The  Blot  on  the  Brain,  W.  W.  Ireland. 
'  L'Heredite  Psychologique,  Th.  Ribot. 


Fig.   I. 


KING    AI.KXANDKR    OK   SKRVIA. 


THE    PRINCIPLES    OF    EVOLUTION  71 

He  has  ascertained  the  records  of  seven  hundred  and  nine.  Of 
these,  one  hundred  and  seven  were  of  illegitimate  birth,  one 
hundred  and  sixty-two  were  professional  beggars,  sixty-four  in- 
mates of  almshouses,  one  hundred  and  eighty-one  prostitutes, 
seventy-six  were  convicted  of  serious  crimes,  and  seven  were 
condemned  for  murder.  The  total  cost  to  the  state  of  caring  for 
these  paupers  and  punishing  the  criminals,  and  the  amounts 
privately  given  in  alms  and  lost  through  theft,  are  reckoned  at 
one  million  two  hundred  and  six  thousand  dollars,  or  more  than 
twelve  thousand  dollars  a  year.    An  expensive  family,  this. 

The  history  of  the  "Juke  family,"  as  recorded  by  the  im- 
mortal Richard  Dugdale,  is  a  familiar  and  trite  American  ex- 
ample of  the  way  in  which  criminals,  paupers,  and  inebriates 
breed.  The  descendants  of  one  Ada  Juke,  otherwise  and  more 
familiarly  known  as  "  Margaret,  the  Mother  of  Criminals,"  were 
carefully  traced.  The  family  and  its  various  branches  inhabited 
a  certain  county  in  eastern  New  York.  Of  the  twelve  hundred 
direct  descendants  of  Ada  Juke,  nearly  one  thousand  were  shown 
to  be  criminals,  prostitutes,  paupers,  inebriates,  or  insane.  These 
degenerates  had  cost  the  State  one  million  three  hundred  thou- 
sand dollars. 

The  law  of  degenerate  heredity  once  proved,  it  is  obvious  that 
there  must  be  many  Juke  families  in  various  social  systems.  I 
will  reiterate  here,  however,  what  has  been  said  of  the  asso- 
ciation of  heredity  and  environment.  In  such  criminal  histories 
as  the  foregoing,  the  separation  of  the  two  sets  of  influences 
would  be  a  difficult  matter.  Exposed  to  the  same  vicious  en- 
vironment during  the  plastic  stage  of  the  brain,  practically  all  of 
the  children  of  such  parentage  must  of  necessity  grow  up  with- 
out moral  sense,  but.  while  the  average  of  crime  would  be  higher 
than  in  children  of  good  heredity,  it  would  be  grievously  high,  no 
matter  how  sound  the  heredity  might  be,  environment  being  the 
same. 

I  do  not  consider  such  investigations  of  large  criminal  fami- 
lies to  be  so  important,  so  far  as  the  demonstration  of  hereditary 
traits  is  concerned,  as  the  study  of  individual  families  with  fairly 
good  surroundings,  upon  whom  general  social  influences  operate 


72  THE    DISEASES   OF    SOCIETY 

more  or  less  potently.  The  special  influence  of  heredity  is  best 
shown  in  small  family  groups  in  advanced  social  systems.  Per- 
tinent in  this  connection  is  a  case  in  the  author's  experience,  in 
which  the  father  died  a  drunkard,  and  his  two  sons,  who  in  early 
manhood  abhorred  and  deplored  their  father's  course,  became 
incurable  inebriates  later  on. 

A  point  worthy  of  attention  is  the  fact  that  where  vicious 
parentage  is  upon  only  one  side,  the  child  may  present  the  traits 
of  the  normal  parent.  Heredity  is  not  one-sided,  as  might  be 
inferred  from  the  writings  of  some  criminologists.  A  unilateral 
heredity  of  good  may  oflFset  an  heredity  that  is  bad  upon  the 
other  side.  Even  where  environment  is  unfavorable  during 
growth  and  development,  the  child  may  still  escape  criminality. 
The  following  history  is  an  illustration: 

The  subject,  W.  B.,  is  forty-two  years  of  age;  a  clergyman, 
able,  intellectual,  and  highly  respected.  He  was  the  only  child  of 
very  poor  parents.  The  mother  came  from  a  fine  family,  without 
taint  of  degeneracy  in  any  form.  His  father  was  shiftless  and 
lazy,  with  no  settled  occupation,  and  a  drunkard.  His  mother 
died  at  his  birth,  and  he  therefore  had  no  guiding  hand  in  his 
early  life.  The  paternal  grandmother  was  a  kleptomaniac,  who 
had  to  be  watched  constantly  to  prevent  her  stealing  anything 
upon  which  she  could  lay  her  hands.  The  paternal  grandfather 
was  a  drunkard.  One  paternal  uncle  served  two  terms  in  the 
penitentiary  for  thieving;  another  paternal  uncle  and  several 
aunts  were  respectable,  law-abiding  people.  The  boy  was 
brought  up  in  the  country  by  his  grandparents,  his  early  environ- 
ments being,  therefore,  as  vmfavorable  as  possible.  He  grew 
up  to  adult  life,  however,  without  showing  any  criminal  or  im- 
moral tendencies.  Religion  had  nothing  to  do  with  his  moral 
conduct  during  childhood  and  youth,  as  he  did  not  become  re- 
ligious until  later  in  life.  The  boy  worked  for  the  neighboring 
farmers  and  attended  district  school,  which  was  the  extent  of  his 
educational  opportunities.  He  was  always  steady,  a  fine  student, 
and  exerted  a  repressive  influence  upon  the  wild  and  immoral 
impulses  of  some  of  his  fellow-students.  In  his  early  manhood 
he  went  to  work  as  a  railroad  brakeman.     He  finally  bought  a 


THE   PRINCIPLES    OF   EVOLUTION  73 

farm  and  worked  it  for  a  year  or  so,  but  the  crops  failed  and  he 
was  bankrupted.  At  the  age  of  thirty  he  accepted  rehgion,  and 
became  a  preacher.  Had  this  not  occurred,  it  is,  of  course,  pos- 
sible that  some  moral  lapse  might  eventually  have  developed. 

Rev.  O.  McCulloch  *  has  traced  the  life  histories  of  seventeen 
hundred  and  fifty  degenerate  criminal  and  pauper  descendants  of 
one  "  Ben  Ishmael,"  who  lived  in  Kentucky  in  1790.  Among  this 
brood  of  criminals  and  paupers  there  were  one  hundred  and 
twenty-one  prostitutes. 

The  Rev.  Dr.  Stocker,  of  Berlin,  traced  eight  hundred  and 
thirty-four  decendants  of  two  sisters,  who  died  in  1825.  Among 
them  were  seventy-six  who  had  served  one  hundred  and  sixteen 
years  in  prison,  one  hundred  and  sixty-four  prostitutes,  one  hun- 
dred and  six  illegitimate  children,  seventeen  pimps,  one  hundred 
and  forty-two  beggars,  and  sixty-four  paupers.^ 

It  has  been  estimated  by  Sichart,  Director  of  Prisons  in  Wur- 
temburg,  that  over  twenty-five  per  cent,  of  the  German  prison 
population  comes  from  a  degenerate  ancestry.  Vergilis  claims 
thirty-two  per  cent,  for  Italian  criminals. 

In  every  social  system  examples  of  families  the  majority  of 
the  members  of  which  present  vicious  and  criminal  tendencies 

from  heredity,  example,  and  training,  are  to  be  found.    The 

family,  famous  in  the  criminal  annals  of  Chicago,  is  noteworthy 

in  this  connection.     "  Mother"  ,  as  she  is  known  to  the 

police,  is  said  to  be  a  hard  drinker.     There  is  no  history  of  the 

father,  save  that  he  was  a  "  hard-working"  man.     Mother 

was  charged  by  the  police  with  being  a  "  fence."  It  is  also 
claimed  that  she  educated  her  sons  to  visit  factories  on  pay-days 
and  pick  the  pockets  of  workingmen,  and  that  she  has  by  no 
means  neglected  their  education  in  other  departments  of  crime. 

The  " gang,"  which  comprised  not  only  her  own  sons,  but 

other  criminal  youths,  is  said  to  have  acknowledged  her  as  its 
head  and  business  manager.  She  has  played  all  sorts  of  sympa- 
thetic dodges  in  the  defence  and  protection  of  her  degenerate 

*  The  Children  of  Ishmael. 

'  Prisoners   and   Paupers,   H.   M.   Boise. 


74  THE   DISEASES   OF   SOCIETY 

brood  and  their  co-workers.  Her  sons  are  all  pickpockets  and 
diamond-thieves.  All  have  "  done  time,"  off  and  on,  some  being 
now  in  various  penitentiaries.  They  rank  as  the  best  among 
those  cleverest  of  the  light-fingered  gentry,  the  diamond-thieves. 
Several  of  the  boys  are  expert  burglars.  The  oldest  son  is  now 
serving  his  time  for  burglary.  The  youngest  son  was  tried  for 
murder,  and,  although  he  was  acquitted,  the  general  impression 
was  that  he  "  did  the  job." 

Opportunities  to  lead  an  honest  life  have  not  been  lacking  in 
the  case  of  some  of  this  family.  One  son  had  a  fine-salaried  rail- 
road position,  which  he  quit  voluntarily  to  enter  upon  a  criminal 
career.  Still  another  son  was  given  a  chance  to  earn  an  honest 
living,  but  backslid.  The  glitter  of  a  diamond  stud  was  always 
too  great  a  temptation  to  be  resisted  by  the  boys  of  the  family. 
All  of  its  members  were  distinctly  neuropaths,  and  above  the 
average  in  acuteness  of  perception,  cleverness,  and  shrewdness. 

Figs.  2  to  9  are  portraits  of  the  boys.     They  form  a 

very  interesting  group,  one  that  is  a  reproach  to  the  social  system 
in  which  they  were  bred  and  reared.  That  such  a  thing  as  a 
family  of  criminals  should  exist  in  any  social  system  is  an  anom- 
aly. While  the  individual  criminal,  under  the  most  favorable 
conditions  possible,  is  a  difficult  thing  to  eliminate  from  society, 
the  criminal  family  is  not  only  preventable,  but  its  existence  is  a 
blot  upon  civilization.  Whatever  heredity  may  have  done  for 
these  boys,  they  are  by  no  means  physically  typic  degenerates. 
Environment,  and  especially  evil  association,  training,  and  ex- 
ample, must  bear  the  burden  of  responsibility  of  their  criminal 
careers,  or  rather  the  burden  should  be  borne  by  the  social  system 
that  permitted  them  to  remain  in  an  environment  which  would 
almost  inevitably  develop  criminality,  even  in  children  of  the  best 
blood.  Whatever  of  hereditary  taint  they  may  have  possessed 
has  had  unexampled  opportunity  to  develop  criminality  in  them. 
In  the  circumstances  which  surrounded  them,  it  was  almost  im- 
possible that  they  should  escape  criminal  careers. 

Involved  in  the  question  of  heredity  is  the  possibility  of  the 
transmission  to  the  offspring  of  acquired  characteristics  in  the 
parent.     Authorities  are  divided  on  the  question  of  such  trans- 


B 


9 


THE   PRINCIPLES    OF   EVOLUTION  75 

mission.  The  experiences  of  succeeding  generations  of  all  animals 
finally  develops  certain  automatically  operating  qualities  that  we 
term  instinct.  That  acquired  nervous  and  mental  characteristics 
in  one  human  generation  may,  in  the  same  way,  become  an 
integral  part  of  the  constitution  of  the  next  seems  probable.  The 
history  of  the  progeny  of  alcoholics  appears  to  support  this  view. 
To  be  sure,  it  is  most  often  the  primary  nerve  depravity  of  the 
parent  that  is  transmitted  to  the  child,  but  this  does  not  satis- 
factorily explain  all  cases.  It  must  be  remembered,  also,  that  the 
primary  neuro-degeneracy  of  the  parent  criminal  is  the  material 
basis  of  heredity  in  crime.  In  estimating  the  influences  of  hered- 
ity in  the  production  of  criminality,  we  must  consider  the  criminal 
as  only  one  of  the  many  eflfects  of  vicious  heredity.  The  same 
conditions  that  produce  him  also  produce  epileptics,  insane,  vaga- 
bonds, inebriates,  and  prostitutes.  If  we  estimate  the  relation  of 
heredity  to  the  criminal  alone,  its  importance  is  likely  to  escape 
us.  The  collective  results  of  heredity  must  be  considered.  It 
follows,  therefore,  that  no  inquiry  into  the  antecedents  of  a  given 
criminal  is  complete  which  does  not  comprehend  the  neuropathy 
of  his  family  in  general. 

Around  nerve  degeneracy  gather  most  of  the  phenomena  of 
social  pathology,  as  will  be  shown  in  a  subsequent  chapter. 

ATAVISM    AND   SOCIAL   DISEASE 

Atavism,  or  reversion  of  type,  is  a  most  important  phase  of 
the  relation  of  evolutionary  law  to  criminal  and  vice  tendencies. 
It  has  been  touched  upon  in  connection  with  psychic  evolution, 
but  it  demands  fuller  consideration.  Reversion  of  type  may  be 
psychic  or  physical,  or  both. 

Whether  associated  with  obvious  physical  reversions  or  not. 
psychic  atavism  is  the  dominant  characteristic  of  the  criminal. 
It  is  certainly  the  principal  phenomenon  involved  in  the  study  of 
the  crime  question,  because  it  constitutes  the  dynamics  of  crime. 
The  outcropping  of  ancestral  types  of  mentality  is  observed  to 
underlie  many  of  the  manifestations  of  vice  and  crime.  These 
ancestral  types  or  traits  may  revert  farther  back  even  than  the 
savage  progenitors  of  civilized  man,  and  approximate  those  of 


76  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

the  lower  animals  who,  in  turn,  stand  behind  the  savage  in  the 
line  of  descent. 

Reversion  is  by  no  means  limited  to  the  born  criminal  type, 
which  Lombroso  and  his  school  have  claimed  to  identify,  but 
crops  out  all  along  the  line  of  offenders  against  society,  criminal 
or  non-criminal. 

The  extreme  phases  of  atavism  are  seen  not  only  in  cases  of 
malformation  of  brain-structure,  but  may  suddenly  develop  as  a 
consequence  of  disease  or  injury  of  the  brain  in  previously  nor- 
mal subjects,  both  in  childhood  and  adult  life.  As  already  stated, 
anything  that  removes  inhibitions,  either  gradually  or  suddenly, 
may  cause  a  reversion  to  ancestral  conditions.  The  filthy  habits 
of  imbeciles,  and  the  homicidal  tendencies  of  epileptics,  insane, 
inebriates,  and  the  victims  of  toxic  delirium — whether  from  fever 
or  otherwise — serve  as  examples. 

Lombroso  assigns  to  atavism  a  position  of  pre-eminence  in 
the  etiology  of  crime.®  In  effect,  he  thinks  that  crime  is  a  return 
to  primitive  and  barbarous  ancestral  conditions,  the  criminal 
being  practically  a  savage,  born  later  than  his  day.  Obviously  this 
view  fits  very  accurately  the  so-called  born  criminal,  comprising 
about  one-tenth  of  the  entire  criminal  population.  By  some 
it  is  restricted  to  these.  This  I  do  not  think  fair,  for  a  complete 
type  reversion  is  not  •  necessary  to  either  psychic  or  physical 
atavism.  Atavism  may  manifest  itself  in  a  single  physical  feature 
or  single  phase  of  psychic  phenomena.  Fere  ^  practically  demands 
for  the  establishment  of  atavism  a  complete  correspondence  to 
some  prehistoric  or  extant  savage  type.  Anything  short  of  this 
he  classes  as  degeneracy.  Taking  sexual  phenomena  as  an  ex- 
ample, we  find  many  instances  of  atavistic  tendencies  short  of 
complete  approximation  to  the  primitive  type.  Reverting  to  the 
physical  side  of  the  question,  the  same  may  be  said  of  the  osseous 
system,  and  especially  of  the  jaw.  Even  where  the  atavistic 
phenomena  go  farther  back  than  the  type  of  savage  or  prehistoric 
man,  the  reversion  may  be  only  partial. 

•  L'Uomo  Delinquente. 

'  Degenerescence  et  Criminal ite,  Ch.  Fere. 


THE    PRINCIPLES    OF    EVOLUTION  -j-j 

The  mistake  is  often  made  of  confounding  atavism  with  de- 
generacy pure  and  simple.  They  are  not  identical,  although  so 
closely  related  that  the  line  of  demarcation  is  not  always  clear. 
As  already  noted,  degeneracy  of  brain  may  produce  atavistic 
psychic  phenomena  even  though  there  is  no  physical  conforma- 
tion corresponding  with  any  distinct  primitive  human  or  lower 
animal  type.  Aberrations  of  cranial  development  may  exist 
which  in  no  wise  present  a  type-resemblance  to  a  primitive  an- 
cestral form.  The  difficulty  of  determining  whether  a  given 
case  of  aberrant  development  of  skull  or  brain,  or  other  portions 
of  the  body,  is  due  to  vicious  influences  brought  to  bear  upon  the 
line  of  descent  or  upon  the  individual  during  uterogestation,  or 
to  a  spontaneous  harking  back  to  primitive  ancestral  forms,  is  at 
once  obvious.  As  a  broad  general  proposition,  atavism  is  not  a 
cause  of  degeneracy,  but  degeneracy  may  cause  what  is  in  effect 
atavism.  The  animal-like  traits  of  certain  brain  degenerates  is  a 
point  in  evidence. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  atavism  is  a  phenomenon  in- 
separable from  the  general  organic  law  of  evolution.  It  must  not 
be  distorted  to  mean  degeneracy,  simply  because  of  its  frequent 
association  with  that  condition  in  the  human  subject.  A  black 
sheep  or  a  black  hen  in  a  flock  of  white  ones  is  not  degenerate, 
but  may  be  as  perfect  as  its  white  brethren.  Its  remote  black 
ancestor  may  have  been,  and  probably  was,  organically  as  perfect 
as  its  own  immediate  family.  The  atavistic  white  animal  occur- 
ring in  breeds  of  a  dark  color  is  not  to  be  confounded  with  the 
albino, — a  distinct  type  of  degeneracy. 

Atavism  is  antagonistic  to  heredity  in  a  sense,  and  therefore 
tends  to  antagonize  degeneracy.  The  harking  back  to  the  traits 
of  a  remote  ancestor  may  preserve  the  type-integrity  of  one  or  all 
of  the  progeny  of  a  given  degenerate  stock.  An  influence  of  this 
kind,  associated  with  the  great  change  in  environment,  may  have 
had  much  to  do  with  the  decency  and  law-abiding  propensities 
of  the  descendants  of  the  convicts  of  the  English  penal  colonies. 
Australia,  Tasmania,  and  New  Zealand  have  a  strong  infusion  of 
convict  blood,  yet  compare  favorably  with  other  communities  in 
point  of  order.     To  be  sure,  the  influence  of  atavism  must  be 


78  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

discounted  somewhat  from  the  fact  that  many  of  the  convicts 
were  poHtical  victims  and  in  no  sense  criminals.  Discount  it  as 
we  may,  however,  the  character  of  the  descendants  of  the  English 
penal  colonists  has  its  lesson  in  the  matter  of  the  inherent  possi- 
bilities of  reform  of  criminals  in  general. 

So  far  as  physical  evidences  of  atavism  are  concerned,  it 
would  seem  that  they  are  complete  enough  to  warrant  its  accept- 
ance. These  physical  reversions  may  appear  in  both  degenerates 
and  non-degenerates.  They  seem  to  appear  with  especial  fre- 
quency in  criminals.  Aberrant  types  of  cranial  and  brain  devel- 
opment attributable  to  atavism  are  frequent  in  criminals. 
Whether  they  are  more  frequent  in  criminals  than  in  other  de- 
generates has  been  a  subject  of  much  controversy.  Many  excel- 
lent observers  hold  that  they  are  no  more  frequent  in  criminals 
than  in  normal  persons.  The  evidence  at  command,  and  some 
years  of  observation,  have  inclined  me  to  the  belief  that  they  are 
more  often  found  in  what  may  be  generally  termed  antisocial 
beings, — a  class  comprising  not  only  criminals,  but  the  insane, 
epileptics,  and  prostitutes, — and  present  themselves  most  fre- 
quently in  confirmed  criminals  and  the  insane. 

All  of  the  evolutionary  factors  that  tend  to  produce  the  crimi- 
nal— comprised  by  heredity,  atavism,  and  environment,  in  their 
various  divagations  and  interrelations — are  potent  in  proportion 
to  the  age  of  the  given  social  system.  The  line  of  demarcation 
between  the  normal  and  the  degenerate  is  more  distinct  in  Europe 
than  in  America.  The  fixed  criminal  type  is  more  abundant  and 
more  definite  in  Europe.  This  alone  should  inspire  us  with  cau- 
tion in  applying  the  deductions  of  the  Italian  school  to  America. 
It  must  be  remembered,  too,  that  a  fixed  racial  type,  such,  for 
example,  as  the  Italian,  is  not  a  fair  criterion  for  the  study  of  a 
social  system  like  ours,  in  which  there  is  no  racial  type,  but  a 
heterogeneous  mixture  of  bloods. 

In  time,  America  will  have  its  own  more  or  less  fixed  criminal 
type,  and  a  larger  proportion  of  criminals  than  Europe.  The 
hurry  and  fret  of  American  life  is  turning  out  degenerates  at  a 
rate  that  will  one  day  stagger  the  world.  The  closest  approxima- 
tions to  the  Lombrosan  standard  of  criminal  in  America  are 


THE    PRINCIPLES    OF   EVOLUTION  79 

to-day,  however,  either  a  part  of  the  criminal  refuse  that  the  Old 
World  has  dumped  upon  our  shores,  persons  of  foreign  birth,  or 
of  a  parentage  of  more  or  less  recent  importation.  In  brief,  the 
environmental  factors  must  be  taken  into  consideration.  In  order 
that  the  same  crystallization  of  the  criminal  type  as  may  be  noted 
in  Europe  should  occur  in  America,  the  same  circumstances  of 
environment  must  prevail.  That  they  do  not  now  prevail  is 
obvious. 


CHAPTER    III 

THE  ETIOLOGY  OF  SOCIAL  DISEASES   IN   GENERAL,   WITH    ESPECIAL 
REFERENCE   TO    CRIME 

General  Principles. — No  hard  and  fast  line  is  drawn  scien- 
tifically between  vice  and  crime.  For  the  purposes  of  this  vol- 
ume, however,  vice  covers  all  breaches  of  established  ethics,  and 
all  immoral  or  unphysiologic  acts  that  are  injurious  to  the  indi- 
vidual himself  or  offensive  to  the  majority  of  the  indivduals  who 
make  up  any  given  social  system,  without  coming  within  the 
prohibitory  pale  of  the  law.  The  more  closely  the  divagation 
from  the  normal  ethical  standard  limits  itself  in  its  effects  to  the 
individual  immediately  concerned,  the  more  closely  it  corre- 
sponds to  vice  and  the  more  likely  it  is  to  be  winked  at  by 
society  in  general.  Obviously,  certain  crimes  and  misdemeanors 
fall  under  the  category  of  vice,  a  given  form  of  vice  often  leading 
directly  to  the  commission  of  acts  made  criminal  by  statute. 

Both  vice  and  crime  may  or  may  not  have  a  tangible  physical 
basis.  In  many  instances  where  no  macroscopic  or  microscopic 
research  can  find  a  physical  basis  for  a  given  form  of  vice  or 
crime,  a  physical  cause  none  the  less  underlies  it,  albeit  too  occult 
for  detection  by  any  known  method  of  investigation.  Whether 
any  form  of  vice  or  crime  can  exist  independently  of  physical 
causes  depends  on  the  accuracy  of  the  view  that  all  human  attri- 
butes are  in  their  ultimate  physical,  and  revolves  largely  around 
the  question  of  the  possibility  of  a  derangement  of  brain  function 
without  a  greater  or  less  perversion  of  structure. 

Petty  vice  of  various  kinds  is  quite  likely  to  emanate  from 
weaklings  who  lack  only  the  physical  stamina  or  the  temptation 
of  necessity  or  opportunity  to  become  actual  criminals. 

There  are  many  cases  of  vice  and  crime  which  our  inability 
80 


ETIOLOGY  OF  SOCIAL  DISEASES  IN  GENERAL    8i 

to  discover  a  physical  cause  by  any  means  at  our  command  puts 
into  a  class  by  themselves.  Again,  the  structural  aberrations 
found  are  often  the  result  of  a  given  vice,  or  of  the  vicissitudes 
of  a  criminal  career,  yet  act  by  adding  fuel  to  the  fire  and  in- 
creasing the  tendency  to  the  acts  which  produced  them.  Disease- 
producing  vice  and  vice-producing  disease,  therefore,  go  hand  in 
hand.  Even  slight  familiarity  with  sexual  vice  and  the  results 
of  alcoholic  and  narcotic  inebriety  is  sufficient  to  demonstrate 
this  point. 

The  finer  distinctions  between  vice  and  crime  are  purely  legal 
and  technical.  Antisocial  and  antiphysiologic  acts  may  be  either 
vicious  or  criminal,  or  both. 

Crime  may  be  defined  as  an  act  in  violation  of  public  law,  a 
violation  of  the  legally  prescribed  duty  of  the  individual  to  die 
community  in  its  social  or  aggregate  capacity,  or  a  violation  of 
public  and  individual  rights  recognized  and  punishable  b}"  law  as 
a  menace  to  the  welfare  of  the  community  as  a  whole.  Crimes 
are  distinctly  separated  by  law  from  civil  injuries  or  torts — 
offences  that  concern  the  individual  alone.  The  legal  hair- 
splitting differentiations  of  crimes  into  felonies  and  misde- 
meanors, and  the  reasons  therefor,  do  not  concern  us  here. 
There  is,  however,  a  vast  difference  between  the  various  degrees 
of  crime  in  their  bearing  upon  the  status  of  the  criminal.  Mis- 
demeanors, breaches  of  social  order  prohibited  and  punishable  by 
law,  are  daily  committed  by  persons  who  are  in  no  sense  of  the 
criminal  class.  Felonies,  even,  are  not  infrequently  committed  by 
persons  who  are  not  criminals,  either  by  breeding,  instinct,  or 
education.  The  necessarilv  fine  legal  distinctions  between  cer- 
tain torts  and  crimes  are  of  no  special  concern  to  criminologists, 
nor  is  a  reference  to  them  necessary  to  sustain  the  point  I  am 
endeavoring  to  make, — viz.,  that  the  legal  status  of  crime  has  no 
direct  bearing  upon  the  status  of  the  offender  before  the  court 
of  Science.  Examples  are  not  far  to  seek.  In  some  States  bas- 
tardy is  a  crime.  It  would  be  absurd  to  class  individuals  guilty 
of  it  as  criminals  on  no  other  grounds  than  its  commission.  In 
theory  the  law  on  this  point  is  for  the  protection  of  the  public. 
The  child  must  not  be  left  as  a  burden  on  the  community.     The 

6 


82  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

crime  is  committed  by  the  man,  not  by  the  woman,  says  the  law, 
simply  because  he  is  most  likely  to  have  the  money  to  care  for  the 
child.  The  law  commits  a  great  wrong  here  by  stamping  the 
unborn  child  with  the  brand  of  infamy  and  repudiating  society's 
obligation  to  care  for  it  and  rear  it  as  a  useful  citizen.  If  bas- 
tardy is  a  crime,  then  in  all  justice  the  strict  letter  of  the  law 
should  condemn  all  fornication  as  an  attempt  at  bastardy  and 
attach  a  penalty  thereto. 

Assault  and  battery  is  variously  classed  as  a  tort  or  a  crime, 
according  to  the  notions  of  the  wiseacres  who  frame  the  laws  of 
the  diflferent  States.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  personal  assaults  are 
more  often  committed  by  persons  who  are  in  no  sense  criminal 
than  by  the  criminal  class. 

Certain  breaches  of  socio-sexual  ethics,  such  as  adultery  and 
seduction,  are  classified  in  most  States  as  crimes,  yet  who  shall 
say  that  the  offenders  belong  scientifically  to  the  criminal  class? 
In  the  case  of  adultery  it  is  considered  a  crime  in  some  quarters 
and  a  huge  joke,  with  great  advertising  advantages,  in  others. 
Expectorating  upon  the  sidewalk  is  a  criminal  offence  in  some 
communities,  yet  the  tobacco-chewer  is  not  necessarily  a  criminal. 

The  number  of  impulsive  breaches  of  social  ethics  regarded 
in  various  social  systems  as  crimes  is  so  great  that,  if  the  culprits 
should  all  be  brought  to  book,  the  Treasury  of  the  United  States 
would  scarce  suffice  to  pay  their  fines  nor  the  expense  of  their 
prosecution.  As  for  those  persons  in  our  social  system  to  whom 
imprisonment  is  technically  due,  there  is  scarcely  granite  enough 
available  in  this  great  country  to  build  walls  within  which  to 
immure  them. 

In  many,  many  instances  of  sporadic  criminality  the  victim  of 
ill-advised  and  controllable  impulses  is  not  a  criminal  from  the 
stand-point  of  criminal  anthropology.  If  he  becomes  one  even- 
tually, the  responsibility  rests  with  our  penal  systems.  Sporadic 
criminals  may  often  be  saved,  if  they  be  not  exposed  to  still  more 
virulent  moral  infection  by  herding  them  with  true  criminals. 

It  will  be  seen,  then,  that  it  is  impossible  to  discuss  the  sub- 
ject of  vice  and  crime  along  arbitrary  and  dogmatic  lines.  Nei- 
ther is  it  logical  to  consider  it  entirely  upon  physical  premises, 


ETIOLOGY  OF  SOCIAL  DISEASES  IN  GENERAL    83 

although  material  conditions  are  the  foundation  of  criminal  an- 
thropology. 

VARIETIES   OF    CRIME 

In  America,  there  are  eight  hundred  and  twenty-four  anti- 
social acts  classified  as  crimes,  broadly  divided  into — 

1.  Attacks  upon  public  order,  internal  or  external. 

2.  Abuses  and  obstructions  of  public  authority. 

3.  Acts  injurious  to  the  public  in  general. 

4.  Attacks  upon  the  persons  of  individuals,  or  upon  rights 
annexed  to  their  persons. 

5.  Attacks  upon  the  property  of  individuals,  or  upon  rights 
connected  with  and  similar  to  rights  of  property. 

6.  Attacks  upon  government — political  crimes. 

7.  Offences  against  the  currency,  such  as  counterfeiting. 

In  order  that  any  of  the  foregoing  should  constitute  a  crime, 
the  intent  to  commit  crime  must  be  shown.  Herein  lies  the  im- 
portance of  a  knowledge  of  the  pathologic  and  psychologic  state 
of  accused  individuals.  A  certain  degree  of  mentality  is  abso- 
lutely essential  to  intent,  for  without  full  knowledge  of  the  conse- 
quences, and  some  sort  of  conception  of  a  reason  for  the  act, 
crime,  in  the  legal  sense,  cannot  be  committed. 

It  is  self-evident  that  the  legal  aspects  of  the  acts  of  human 
beings  cannot  be  the  crucial  test  of  criminality,  as  understood  by 
the  criminal  anthropologist.  The  study  of  the  conditions  under- 
lying crime  demands  that  in  many  instances,  so  far  as  the  anti- 
social character  of  the  acts  is  concerned,  we  weigh  the  criminal 
who  is  irresponsible  in  the  same  scientific  balance  with  him  who 
commits  a  crime  with  intent,  and  with  a  complete  knowledge  of 
the  consequences  of  the  act  and  the  penalty  therefor.  The  fact 
that  nothing  is  a  crime  which  is  not  so  pronounced  and  punish- 
able by  the  law  has  only  an  incidental  bearing  on  the  degeneracy 
which  is.  in  the  main,  responsible  for  the  crime  class.  In  classify- 
ing crimes  the  law  makes  no  distinction  in  the  character  of  the 
persons  who  commit  them.  Were  the  common  law  the  standard 
by  which  criminal  acts  are  judged,  a  uniform  criminal  code 
might  be  possible,  but  diflFerent  countries  have  different  codes. 


84  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

and  in  America  immense  variations  exist,  due  to  the  statutory 
modifications  of  common  law  adopted  by  the  different  States. 

CLASSIFICATION    OF    CRIMINALS 

Obviously,  the  legal  classification  of  crimes  has  no  relation 
to  the  scientific  aspect  of  the  crime  question,  save  in  so  far  as  the 
criminality  of  the  insane  is  concerned,  and  even  here  medical 
science  has  had  to  fight  its  way  inch  by  inch  towards  an  intelligent 
and  humane  modification  of  jurisprudence.  From  the  scientific 
stand-point  it  is  impossible  at  present  to  classify  criminals  in  har- 
mony with  the  legal  classification  of  crimes.  The  physical  and 
psychologic  status  of  the  offender  is  the  basis  for  all  scientific 
classifications.  Broadly  speaking,  criminals,  from  the  author's 
point  of  view,  fall  under  the  following  heads, — viz. :  ( i )  Instinc- 
tive criminals, — ^born  criminals,  the  moral  imbecile,  or  so-called 
moral  insane, — the  stable  factor  in  criminality.  (2)  Criminals  by 
impulse, — the  occasional  criminal,  criminals  by  passion,  criminals 
from  accidental  or  intercurrent  factors  of  disease,  inebriety, 
necessity,  or  social  excitement.  (3)  Epileptic  and  insane  crimi- 
nals.    (4)  Political  criminals. 

Classes  2  and  3  may  be  logically  termed  the  unstable  factors 
of  criminality.  They  include  among  other  factors  the  results  of 
auto-intoxication  in  both  previously  normal  and  morally  weak 
subjects.  Many  neuropaths  go  through  life  without  criminality 
because  subjected  to  no  especial  stress.  The  results  of  political 
excitement,  industrial  crises,  and  social  hysteria  are  important 
factors  in  the  development  of  this  class.  The  climacteric,  in  both 
male  and  female,  and  especially  in  the  latter,  is  also  important. 
Even  in  subjects  affected  with  coarse  brain  disease,  some  exciting 
cause  may  be  responsible  for  the  development  of  criminal  im- 
pulse. The  criminal  by  impulse  may  have  no  natural  tendency 
to  crime.  Murder,  suicide,  and  theft  may  result  from  accidental 
causes  removing  inhibitions  in  subjects  of  irritable  emotionality. 
The  most  distinctive  type  of  criminal  by  impulse  is  the  criminal 
by  passion,  who  commits  assault  or  murder  while  in  the  frenzy 
of  anger.  The  question  of  emotional  insanity  enters  into  con- 
sideration in  this  connection.     While  to  my  mind  a  pathologic 


ETIOLOGY  OF  SOCIAL  DISEASES  IN  GENERAL    85 

entity,  and  very  important  scentifically,  emotional  insanity  is  tht 
most  dangerous  factor  possible  in  jurisprudence.  It  could  be 
made  to  cover — and  logically — practically  all  cases  of  murder 
and  assault.  It  certainly  could  be  made  to  cover  all  cases  except 
those  in  which  deliberate  preparation  is  shown  and  cases  of 
murder  by  criminals  in  the  exercise  of  their  profession. 

The  occasional  criminal  or  criminal  by  impulse  can  be  con- 
verted into  an  habitual  criminal  very  readily  by  unintelligent 
administration  of  law  and  its  penalties.  This  charge  also  may  be 
safely  made  against  society, — viz. :  A  large  proportion  of  adult 
habitual  criminals  have  been  made  by  society's  neglect  of  juvenile 
offenders,  on  the  one  hand,  and  their  ill-advised  punishment,  on 
the  other.    They  have  never  had  a  "  show." 

The  political  offender  is  not  necessarily  a  criminal.  Every 
revolt  against  despotism  that  the  world  has  ever  known  has  been 
a  political  crime.  A  revolt  of  the  minority  against  the  majority, 
or  a  revolt  of  the  majority  against  the  despotism  of  a  dominant 
minority,  has  been  the  fountain-head  of  political  crimes.  The 
penal  colonies  of  Russia  teem  with  men  who  are  martyrs  to  their 
political  ideas.  England  and  France  have  a  long  score  to  settle 
with  humanity  on  the  same  grounds.  But  not  all  political 
offenders  are  martyrs.  The  slayer  of  a  ruler  may  be  a  murderer 
by  instinct,  in  whom  alleged  political  fervor  is  but  the  needed 
element  of  suggestion  to  kill.  He  may  be  a  paranoiac,  for  whom 
either  anarchy  or  a  fancied  grievance  is  the  needed  suggestion. 
The  revolutionist  who  tries  to  overthrow  an  existing  form  of 
government,  however  vicious  it  may  be,  is  a  political  criminal  if 
he  fails,  a  hero  if  he  succeeds.  The  difference  between  George 
Washington  and  Jefferson  Davis,  or  between  Grant  and  Lee,  was 
merely  a  matter  of  success  or  failure.  The  rebel  of  to-day  is  the 
hero  or  martyr  of  to-morrow.  Christ  was  regarded  and  treated 
as  a  criminal ;  so  were  the  early  Christian  martyrs.  Charlotte 
Corday  has  been  all  but  enrolled  among  the  Saints  ;  John  Wilkes 
Booth's  name  is  anathema ;  yet  both  were  degenerate  patriotic 
fanatics,  who  murdered  from  the  same  principle.  Neither  com- 
mitted an  act  inconsistent  with  normal  brain  constitution  ;  such 
acts  have  been  perpetrated   by   non-degenerates    from    similar 


86  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

motives.    Sic  semper  tyrannis  has  ever  emanated  from  a  clear 
conscience. 

Crime  is  the  most  important  of  all  antisocial  acts,  but  the 
more  carefully  and  broadly  it  is  studied,  the  more  evident  it 
becomes  that  it  is  but  one  of  many  phases  of  social  disease  built 
upon  a  common  foundation,  involving  the  most  complex  social, 
psychologic,  and  pathologic  conditions. 

DEGENERACY    AND   SOCIAL   DISEASE 

Degeneracy,  or  a  degradation  of  development  from  the  aver- 
age normal  type,  is  the  fundamental  cause  of  the  majority  of  the 
multiform  antisocial  acts  included  under  the  captions  of  vice  and 
crime.  This  degeneracy  may  be  inherited  or  acquired.  It  is  a 
pity  that  we  cannot  at  once  reduce  all  social  disease  to  degeneracy 
as  its  ultimate.  This  is,  in  effect,  what  the  modern  school  of 
criminal  anthropology  claims  to  have  done.  This  new  science, 
the  age  of  which  is  but  little  past  the  quarter-century  mark,  has 
developed  much  that  is  striking  and  valuable.  Its  birth  marked 
an  epoch  in  sociolog}'  and  criminology ;  small  wonder  that  it  has 
developed  certain  untoward  results  which  are  inseparable  from 
scientific  enthusiasm.  Some  of  its  disciples  have  sought  chiefly 
for  the  things  they  wished  to  find.  Many  of  its  opponents  have 
sought  only  for  facts  contradictory  of  those  gathered  by  the  crim- 
inal anthropologist.  The  pendulum  has  not  yet  swung  back  to 
that  mean  of  scientific  thought  and  study  where  the  golden  grains 
of  truth  are  to  be  found,  untainted  by  bias  for  or  against  a  new 
theory. 

The  essence  of  degeneracy  is  neuropathy — usually  hereditary. 
Behind  all  processes  of  nutrition  and  growth  is  the  physiologic 
architect,  the  nervous  system.  Through  its  trophic  function  the 
materials  brought  to  the  tissues  are  builded  into  cell  and  fibre. 
As  is  the  integrity  of  the  nervous  system,  so  is  the  integrity  of 
the  structure  built  up  through  its  influence.  Glandular  organs, 
especially,  are  aflFected  by  variations  of  innervation.  Upon  the 
quality  and  quantity  of  gland  products  the  bodily  health  largely 
depends.  This  subject  is  in  its  infancy,  as  yet;  this  much  we 
know,  however, — viz.,  that  the  function  of  brain  and  nerve  tissue 


ETIOLOGY  OF  SOCIAL  DISEASES  IN  GENERAL    87 

is  seriously  perverted  by  certain  morbid  conditions  of  the 
glandular  system. 

The  quantity,  quality,  and  assimilation  of  food  pabulum  is  the 
key-note  of  stability  of  tissue-building.  With  the  source  of  the 
architect's  own  energy  sapped  by  innutrition,  and  the  materials 
brought  to  his  hand  made  pernicious  or  defective  in  quality  or 
insufficient  in  quantity,  structural  degeneracy  must  needs  result. 
The  importance  of  this  as  regards  the  brain  is  obvious.  It  bears 
directly  upon  the  question  of  the  relation  of  malnutrition  to 
social  pathology. 

Inasmuch  as  tissue-building  depends  upon  the  functional 
integrity  of  the  nervous  system,  it  is  evident  that  degradation  of 
development — i.e.,  degeneracy — has  a  neuropathic  foundation. 
Whatever  the  exciting  cause  of  a  given  social  disease  may  be, 
the  predisposing  cause  in  the  degenerate  is  a  neuropathic  consti- 
tution, giving  rise  to  a  perversion  of  formative  energy  which 
may  be  either  in  favor  of  or  against  a  given  structure.  This 
neuro-psychic  degeneracy  is  not  necessarily  obvious ;  it  may 
remain  latent  until  some  stress  influence  is  brought  to  bear.  The 
first  debauch  may  demonstrate  the  existence  of  neuro-psychic 
degeneracy  and  develop  inebriety  in  a  person  hitherto  supposed 
to  be  perfectly  normal.  Temptation  to  crime  may  be  followed  by 
acts  which  show  for  the  first  time  that  the  individual  is  a  neuro- 
psychic  degenerate. 

It  is  a  self-evident  proposition  that  neuro-psychic  degeneracy 
involves  varying  degrees  of  instability  of  will,  irritability  of 
temper,  moral  sense,  and  conscience.  Leaving  out  of  considera- 
tion the  born  criminal,  whose  moral  sense  is  a  negative  quantity, 
and  the  stable  factor  in  criminality,  the  under- 

lying cause  of  social  disease  is,  in  general,  instability  of  neuro- 
psychic  equilibrium. 

The  phenomena  of  neuro-psychic  degeneracy  are  obviously 
not  necessarily  productive  of  criminality,  nor,  indeed,  of  any 
moral  lapse.  Neither  physical  nor  psychic  degeneracy  neces- 
sarily indicates  a  criminal,  nor  even  the  existence  of  criminal 
impulse.  The  occasional  criminal  is  often,  but  not  always,  a 
degenerate.    The  born  criminal  is  invariably  a  dcq-cnerate.     The 


88  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

reverse,  however,  is  not  true,  for  many  degenerates  have  no 
criminal  tendencies  whatever. 

Crime  is  only  one  of  the  many  phenomena  that  degeneracy 
may  produce.  To  this  common  cause  may  be  attributed  a  large 
proportion  of  cases  of  inebriety,  insanity,  epilepsy,  pauperism, 
and  prostitution.  Degeneracy,  however,  although  the  chief 
etiologic  factor  common  to  all  the  varying  forms  of  social  disease, 
does  not  operate  alone  in  the  production  of  the  given  result. 

Much  stress  is  laid  by  criminologists  upon  deformities  of 
various  kinds  in  the  degenerate  classes.  Undue  importance  has 
been  assigned  peculiarities  of  conformation,  and  false  deductions 
drawn  from  anthropologic  studies  of  the  criminal,  which  are 
hindrances  to  scientific  progress.  Mere  deformity  counts  for 
nothing  unless  associated  with  general  developmental  imperfec- 
tions, to  which  mental  and  moral  defects  can  be  logically  attrib- 
uted, or  with  which  such  defects  are  naturally  associated.  Ac- 
quired deformity  is  of  no  moment  in  the  causation  of  crime  unless 
associated  with  injury  or  bad  nutrition  of  the  brain  or  nervous 
system.  Degeneracy,  properly  speaking,  involves  conditions  laid 
down  during  embryonic  life.  As  already  stated,  it  is  essentially 
a  neurosis,  involving  nutrition  and  growth.  It  is,  however, 
made  to  include  conditions  acquired,  or  at  least  developing,  after 
birth,  in  which  it  is  not  easy  either  to  affirm  or  deny  hereditary 
or  congenital  defect  as  a  foundation.  Its  marks  or  stigmata  are 
important  only  as  bearing  upon  general  or  local  faulty  develop- 
ment aiTecting  the  organ  of  mind. 

Moreau  (de  Tours)  has  endeavored,  and  with  some  success, 
to  systematically  formulate  the  biologic  effects  of  degenerate 
heredity,  as  follows : 

1.  Sterility. 

2.  Retardation  of  conception,  or  partial  sterility. 

3.  Incomplete — i.e.,  partial — conception,  with  abortive  pro- 
ducts, such  as  moles. 

4.  Incomplete  developmental  products, — monstrosities. 

5.  Neuropathic  products,  such  as  epileptics,  inebriates,  im- 
beciles, deaf-mutes,  idiots,  the  insane,  and  other  cerebral  phe- 
nomena. 


ETIOLOGY  OF  SOCIAL  DISEASES  IN  GENERAL    89 

6.  Lymphatic  subjects  predisposed  to  tuberculosis  and  kin- 
dred diseases. 

7.  Children  who  show  a  special  proneness  to  die  in  infancy, 
under  conditions  resisted  by  sound  children. 

8.  Children  who,  while  escaping  the  stress  of  infancy,  show 
a  less  than  normal  resistancy  to  disease  and  death. 

That  a  more  or  less  definite  physical  cause  underlies  all 
psychic  phenomena  is  probable.  That  the  physical  basis  of  many 
such  phenomena  is  too  occult  for  detection  by  any  known  method 
of  research  is  not  open  to  controversy.  To  say  that  we  will  one 
day  be  able  to  trace  all  intellectual  and  moral  phenomena  to  an 
appreciable  cause  may  be  within  the  bounds  of  truth,  but  it  is 
somewhat  egotistic,  for  it  is,  in  effect,  claiming  that  we  will  one 
day  know  the  secret  of  life  itself.  In  any  event,  we  are  at  present 
compelled  to  consider  the  phenomena  under  consideration  as 
entities  in  social  pathology,  and,  theories  aside,  it  must  be  ac- 
knowledged that  many  of  the  phases  of  social  disease  must  be 
dealt  with  on  their  merits,  irrespective  of  cause.  We  sometimes 
can  discover  no  more  of  their  fundamental  physical  nature  than 
we  can  of  that  of  electricity. 

Where  no  physical  aberrations  appreciable  either  during  life 
or  post  mortem  exist,  we  are  hardly  justified  in  claiming  that  any 
given  moral  defect  is  an  evidence  of  degeneration,  unless  pre- 
pared to  prove  that  it  is  the  result  of  a  distinct  individual  anti- 
social tendency.  A  given  antisocial  act,  in  which  no  antecedent 
or  subsequent  acts  evincing  criminal  or  immoral  tendency  can  be 
shown,  is  to  be  weighed  very  carefully  before  assigning  degen- 
eracy as  a  cause.  This  is  especially  true  in  view  of  the  fact  that 
there  is  no  arbitrary  standard  for  normal  man,  either  psychic 
or  physical. 

The  foregoing  points  are  of  especial  importance  in  the  con- 
sideration of  many  occasional  or  sporadic  acts  of  criminality, 
occurring  like  a  thunderbolt  from  a  cloudless  sky,  in  the  lives  of 
hitherto  blameless  characters.  Removal  of  inhibitions  upon  the 
normal  man  is  explanatory  here.  Such  phenomena  may  be 
purely  atavistic.  Degeneracy  is  an  explanation  that  does  not 
always  explain. 


90  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

It  is  to  be  understood,  then,  that  certain  causes  of  crime 
operate  by  producing  degeneracy,  or  by  developing  criminal 
impulses  in  the  degenerate,  but  that  they  also  act  by  removing 
inhibitions  in  what  is  ordinarily  understood  as  the  normal  sub- 
ject. I  will  assume,  also,  as  a  corollary,  that  normal  man  is 
naturally  disposed  to  crime  and  vice.  This  disposition  he  owes 
to  the  possession  of  appetites  and  selfish  impulses  in  common 
with  the  lower  animals.  The  inherent  primitive  disposition  of 
man  to  antisocial  acts  is  the  coefficient  of  the  specific  gravity  of 
morals,  which  tends  to  pull  him  down  in  the  moral  scale  as  soon 
as  his  inhibitions  are  removed.  The  higher,  or  altruistic,  social 
instincts  of  man  are  distinctly  artificial.  They  may  be  termed 
"  normal"  by  courtesy  only.  They  are  as  artificial  as  every  other 
result  of  adaptation  to  civilization.  Man  has  risen  in  the  moral, 
and  therefore  in  the  social  scale  by  virtue  of  his  success  in 
battling  with  his  primitive  instincts.  He  is  stronger  than  these 
instincts  proportionately  to  the  number,  force,  and  duration  of 
the  inhibitions  that  the  exigencies  of  civilized  society  put  upon 
him.  The  terrific,  socially  degrading  power  of  the  specific  grav- 
ity of  morals — due  to  the  clinging  of  primitive  instincts — is 
shown  in  the  fall  from  grace  of  the  supposedly  civilized  savage 
who  goes  back  to  his  blanket  and  moccasins  at  the  first  oppor- 
tunity. Moral  automatism  has  replaced  in  the  white  man  the 
more  primitive — more  primitive  because  more  feebly  inhibited, 
and  for  a  shorter  period — instincts  of  the  savage.  There  is  little 
difference  between  civilized  man,  with  his  inhibitions  removed, 
and  the  supposedly  tamed  wild  goose  in  the  barn-yard,  whose 
"  civilized"  inhibitions  are  removed  by  the  cry  of  the  first 
"  honker"  that  flies  over  his  head. 

Heredity  and  atavism  aside,  the  various  influences  operating 
in  the  removal  of  moral  and  social  inhibitions,  whether  through 
the  medium  of  degeneracy  or  otherwise,  might  safely  be  included 
in  the  generic  term,  environment.  Here,  again,  the  principles  of 
evolution  control.  Even  where  actual  disease  or  degeneracy  of 
structure  exists  as  a  tangible  basis  for  immoral  or  criminal  acts, 
environment  is  generally  primarily  responsible,  either  for  the 
faulty  organization  or  for  the  conditions  that  operate  as  the  ex- 


ETIOLOGY  OF  SOCIAL  DISEASES  IN  GENERAL    91 

citing  cause  of  a  given  act.  Vicious  heredity  is  itself  often  the 
result  of  the  action  of  unfavorable  environment  upon  the  parent 
stock. 

SPECIAL    CAUSES   OF    SOCIAL   DISEASE 

Surveying  the  entire  field  of  social  disease,  due  consideration 
being  given  to  the  overlapping,  correlation,  and  co-operation  of 
the  various  factors,  and  to  that  all-pervading  predisposing  factor, 
the  specific  gravity  of  morals,  the  causes  of  crime,  prostitution 
and  other  sexual  vices,  insanity,  pauperism,  and  inebriety,  may 
be  formulated  as  follows: 

1.  Hereditary  influences,  direct  or  indirect,  with  or  without 
perceptible  physical  aberrations.  Habit,  persisted  in  through 
succeeding  generations,  may  result  not  only  in  physical  aberra- 
tions attended  by  psychic  abnormality,  but  in  a  faulty  power  of 
reasoning  which,  although  not  associated  with  variations  of 
physical  conformation,  may  yet  be  transmitted  through  many 
generations. 

2.  Defective  physique,  hereditary  or  congenital,  and  imper- 
fectly developed  intellect.  This  involves  reversions  of  type  and 
cases  of  imperfect  brain  development  from  lack  of  training  in 
subjects  born  normal.  Neglect  and  faulty  management  of  chil- 
dren are  involved  in  the  foregoing. 

3.  Acquired  general  disease,  lessening  the  moral  sense  and 
will  power,  as  seen  in  vicious  or  criminal  acts  under  the  influence 
of  acute  febrile  delirium  or  mania.  This  factor  also  involves  the 
relations  of  autotoxemia  to  crime. 

4.  Acquired  or  congenital  brain  and  nerve  degeneracy  or 
disease,  with  psychopathic  results.  Injuries  of  the  brain. 
Insanity,  epilepsy,  and  hysteria. 

5.  Alcoholic  and  other  forms  of  inebriety. 

6.  Vicious  example  and  surroundings.  This  involves  the 
question  of  criminal  contagion  by  herding  together  all  grades  of 
criminals,  and  neglect  of  children. 

7.  Defective  education  and  moral  training,  and  consequent 
imperfect  mental  and  moral  discipline.  Here,  too,  neglect  of 
children  comes  into  play. 


92  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

8.  Criminal  suggestion.  This  involves  individual  suggestion, 
hypnotism,  and  the  influence  of  bad  literature  and  the  press. 

9.  Perverted  conception  and  maladministration  of  the  law. 
Unjust  dispensation  of  law, 

10.  Alleged  detective  science  or  man-hunting.  Police  perse- 
cution of  discharged  criminals. 

11.  Matrimonial  misalliance,  physical,  moral,  and  social. 
This  involves  the  question  of  consanguinity  and  the  marriage  of 
degenerate  and  diseased  persons  in  general. 

12.  The  marriage  and  intermarriage  of  criminals, — i.e.,  the 
special  breeding  of  criminals  or  possible  criminals. 

13.  The  climacteric,  especially  in  the  female. 

14  Aberrations  and  perversions  of  the  sexual  instinct.  This 
may  be  due  to  congenital  defect  or  acquired  disease.  It  may 
result  from  vicious  training. 

15.  Anarchy  in  its  various  forms.  This  embraces  anarchical 
fanaticism,  corruption  in  politics,  political  encouragement  of 
ruffianism,  protection  of  criminals,  imperfect  and  corrupt  police 
systems,  and  the  lawlessness  of  capital  and  labor. 

16.  Poverty  and  niggardly  or  misapplied  charity,  with  conse- 
quent failure  to  relieve  actual  want.  As  is  well  known,  starva- 
tion and  crime  are  first  cousins.  Adverse  industrial  and  eco- 
nomic conditions  enter  into  consideration  here,  as  also  does  the 
idleness  produced  by  them. 

17.  Factors  peculiarly  American.  The  importation  of  the 
criminal  refuse  of  the  Old  World,  and,  what  is  worse,  individuals 
with  fanatical  social  and  political  views.    The  race  problem. 

18.  Idleness,  whether  from  choice  or  circumstances  over 
which  the  individual  has  no  control. 

19.  The  speculative  and  gambling  instinct.  The  desire  to 
acquire  wealth  without  giving  the  quid  pro  quo  of  talent  or  labor. 
This  involves  insurance  frauds,  breaches  of  trust,  and  many  other 
forms  of  fraud. 

20.  The  special  factors  in  America  of  a  rapidly  increasing 
general  neuropathy — incidental  to  the  wear  and  tear  of  strenuous 
life — and  the  high  cost  of  living. 

A  thoughtful  survey  of  the  foregoing  tabulation  of  causes  at 


ETIOLOGY  OF  SOCIAL  DISEASES  IN  GENERAL    93 

once  demonstrates  the  truth  of  the  premise  that  no  single  factor 
operates  alone  in  the  production  of  a  special  form  of  social  dis- 
ease. It  is  also  evident  that  the  various  causes  rarely,  if  ever, 
operate  independently  of  each  other.  Several  are  usually  com- 
bined, the  given  antisocial  act  being  the  focal  point  of  their  action. 
Many  of  the  causes  of  crime  that  I  have  enumerated  have 
received  elaborate  discussion  under  special  headings  in  other 
chapters  of  this  volume,  and  require  little  or  no  attention  here. 
I  will  confine  myself,  therefore,  to  certain  special  points  that 
have  not  been  fully  considered  elsewhere. 

DEFECTIVE   PHYSIQUE 

Defective  physique,  in  general,  has  not  received  the  attention 
it  deserves  in  the  causation  of  crime.  The  old  adage,  mens  sana 
in  corpore  sano,  is  too  often  forgotten.  Especially  is  it  ignored  by 
the  legislator  and  penologist.  A  normal  psychic  balance  and  a 
brain  fed  with  blood  that  is  insufficient  in  quantity  or  vicious  in 
quality  are  physiologic  incompatibles.  The  nearer  we  get  to  the 
marrow  of  criminality,  the  more  closely  it  approximates  pathology. 
The  questions  of  physique,  education,  and  surroundings  of  chil- 
dren are  the  warp  and  woof  of  the  fabric  of  prevention  of  crime. 
That  society  neglects  its  fundamental  duty  of  caring  for  children 
is  not  open  to  argument ;  that  the  result  is  disastrous  is  even  less 
so.  Even  the  hereditarily  degenerate  criminal  or  prostitute  may 
sometimes  be  saved  ;  the  child  of  good  heredity  may  generally  be. 
Society's  duty  is  as  plain  in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other. 

CONTAGION    OF    CRIME 

The  element  of  criminal  contagion  in  the  etiology  of  crime  is 
most  important  as  bearing  upon  children.  The  convicted  child 
who  is  allowed  to  associate  with  older  and  more  hardened  crim- 
inals is  forever  lost.  Twenty  years  ago,  in  a  monograph  on  the 
"  Pathogeny  of  Vice,"  I  pronounced  our  Bridewell  a  "  college  of 
crime."  Since  that  time  much  attention  has  been  directed  to  the 
indiscriminate  herding  together  of  offenders,  old  and  young,  of 
habituals  and  first  offenders.  Our  Chicago  Juvenile  Court  is  the 
outgrowth  of  slowly  increasing  intelligence  in  penology. 


94  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

Many  years  ago  the  following  dialogue  occurred  between  a 
prison  visitor  and  a  boy  inmate : 

"  Say,  what  do  they  send  boys  here  for  ?" 

"  Why,  I  suppose  to  make  them  better  boys." 

"  Well,  it  doesn't  make  'em  better ;  they  get  worse.  I  didn't 
know  how  to  pick  a  pocket  till  I  came  here,  and  I  didn't  know 
any  fences." 

Here,  in  epitome,  is  the  terrible  story  of  society's  blindness 
and  stupidity. 

Most  criminals  begin  their  career  at  a  time  when  it  is  not 
always  easy  to  differentiate  between  propensities  that  are  natur- 
ally evil  and  the  heedlessness  and  lack  of  altruism  of  youth. 
Just  as  prostitutes  usually  begin  their  career  at  a  period  of  life 
when  the  tares  might  easily  be  separated  from  the  wheat,  so  with 
those  who  enter  a  life  of  crime.  Only  careful  supervision  and 
good  example  and  surroundings  save  many  normal  boys  and 
girls  from  an  immoral  or  criminal  career ;  what  chance  does 
society  offer  the  child  of  vicious  or  degenerate  parentage  and 
evil  surroundings  ?  The  history  of  penology  has  been  marred  by 
bad  logic  and  inhumanity.  Children  have  been  convicted  of 
petty  offences  and  sent  to  prisons  and  reformatories  to  be  con- 
verted into  criminals  by  profession.  Children  are  nothing  if  not 
imitative,  and  are  inclined  to  hero-worship.  To  the  child  crim- 
inal the  older  and  more  hardened  offender  is  a  hero  and  mentor, 
whose  counsels  are  Socratic  in  wisdom.  Once  a  boy  falls  in  such 
company,  he  is  forever  lost,  unless  some  powerful  hand  is  ex- 
tended to  save  him,  and — society  does  not  extend  the  hand.  I 
have  seen  hundreds  of  lads  in  prison  whose  presence  there  was  a 
disgrace  to  civilization,  and  a  large  proportion  of  whom  might 
have  been  saved.  In  many  instances  the  family  history  alone 
should  have  warranted  their  adoption  as  wards  of  the  State  long 
before  they  had  committed  any  offence  against  society.  On  one 
occasion,  several  years  ago,  I  saw  over  forty  boys  in  the  Chicago 
Bridewell,  in  the  majority  of  whom  there  was  a  history  of 
crime,  inebriety,  or  prostitution  in  the  parents.  Few  of  them 
had  ever  had  any  schooling  to  speak  of.  None  of  these  boys  was 
over  fifteen  or  sixteen  years  of  age,  and  some  were  not  over 


ETIOLOGY  OF  SOCIAL  DISEASES  IN  GENERAL    95 

twelve  or  thirteen.  A  short  sojourn  in  prison  classifies  and 
crystallizes  such  boys  as  criminals  for  life.  They  dream  only 
of  the  day  when  they  shall  be  celebrated  "  guns,"  doing  "  big 
jobs."  After  a  few  commitments  they  look  down  with  haughty 
pride  on  the  first  offender. 

Many  boys  are  sent  to  prisons  and  reformatories  who  would 
better  be  spanked  and  sent  home  to  their  parents.  In  many 
instances  the  parents  should  be  compelled  to  show  that  proper 
home  example  and  discipline  are  afforded  their  children.  The 
legal  status  of  children's  bad  conduct  is  a  very  pernicious  social 
factor.  The  healthy  boy  does  not  live  who  has  not  committed 
acts  which  would  bring  him  within  the  pale  of  the  law  were  he 
caught  in  his  mischief  and  the  usual  legal  remedies  dispensed  to 
him.  The  child  of  good  parentage  may  get  the  spanking,  but  he 
who  has  no  parents,  or  vicious  ones,  is  sent  to  jail.  The  mis- 
chievousness  and  selfish  disregard  for  the  rights  of  others  in  the 
one  is  eventually  replaced  by  altruism ;  in  the  other  comes  the 
jail,  and  confirmed  criminality  replaces  what  may  have  been  an 
accidental  manifestation  of  an  undeveloped  moral  sense  and  a 
disregard  for  the  rights  of  others. 

Bishop  Robertson,  of  Missouri,  in  a  speech  once  likened 
justice  to  a  pair  of  huge  iron  jaws  that  opened  and  closed  with 
mechanical  regularity.  Nearly  every  man  at  some  time  in  his 
life  does  something  that  brings  him  within  reach  of  those  jaws; 
but  it  happens  with  many  that  they  are  out  of  reach  when  the 
jaws  are  opening  and  closing,  while  others,  less  fortunate,  but 
no  more  guilty,  are  caught.  He  illustrated  the  inequalities  of 
justice  by  a  story  of  two  boys  who  were  truants  and  went  to  a 
farmer's  orchard  to  steal  apples.  One  of  the  boys  was  caught ; 
the  other  escaped.  The  one  who  was  caught  was  turned  over  to 
the  constable  and  placed  in  jail,  where  he  was  thrown  among 
criminals  long  enough  to  fall  under  the  influence  of  evil  associa- 
tions. When  released  he  was  much  worse  than  when  arrested, 
and  got  deeper  and  deeper  into  crime.  The  other  boy,  with 
whom  he  had  gone  out  to  steal  apples,  remained  in  school,  was 
looked  upon  as  respectable,  acquired  an  education,  became  a 
lawyer,  and  finally  became  a  judge. 


96  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

Twenty-five  years  after  the  apple-stealing  episode,  the  boy 
who  ran  away  and  escaped  punishment  was  the  judge  who  sen- 
tenced to  death  for  murder  the  boy  who  had  been  caught,  and 
whose  punishment  had  started  him  in  a  career  of  crime. 

Apropos  of  the  imbecility  of  the  authorities,  1  recall  an  episode 
of  my  own  boyhood  that  will  serve  as  a  very  pertinent  example : 
When  a  boy  of  some  sixteen  years  of  age,  I  chanced  to  see  a 
party  of  small  boys  engaged  in  jeering  at  two  full-grown  men 
who  were  vainly  trying  to  control  a  balky  horse.  Becoming 
exasperated,  the  men  charged  the  boys,  and  were  proceeding  to 
abuse  a  little  chap  who  was  crippled  and  could  not  escape.  I 
interposed  and  saved  the  lad.  At  this  juncture,  one  of  the  other 
boys  threw  a  stone  and  knocked  down  one  of  the  men.  The  boy 
who  threw  the  stone  was  not  identified,  but  a  few  days  later  five 
of  the  smaller  boys  and  myself  were  arrested  at  school,  taken  to 
the  police  station,  and  locked  up  in  a  cell ;  it  was  said  as  "wit- 
nesses." The  five  hours'  imprisonment  would  have  been  pro- 
longed from  Friday  afternoon  till  Monday  morning,  had  not  a 
friend  of  my  family  heard  of  the  trouble  and  bailed  the  party  out. 
Had  the  station-house  been  peopled  with  criminals  at  the  time, 
the  exposure  to  psychic  contagion  would  have  been  somewhat 
demoralizing  to  young  lads  whose  ideas  of  right  and  wrong 
revolved  mainly  around  selfish  boyish  impulse. 

THE   SLUM    FACTOR    IN    SOCIAL   DISEASE 

The  environment  in  which  the  children  of  the  very  poor  and 
of  the  degenerate  classes  are  reared  is  such  as  must  necessarily 
breed  immorality,  crime,  and  vice.  The  crowded  habitations,  and 
filthy  streets  and  alleys  of  large  cities  are  fertile  soil  in  which  to 
bring  the  seeds  of  crime  to  fruition.  Here  the  gardeners  of  vice 
raise  large  crops.  In  metropolitan  slums  the  haunts  of  depravity 
and  disease  are  found  in  their  highest  development.  Reeking 
tenements,  cheap  groggeries.  the  house  with  green  blinds  ajar, 
behind  which  the  spider  sits  waiting  for  human  flies, — to  whom 
the  temptation  to  sexual  debasement  is  all  sufficient  lure, — low 
dance-halls,  pawn-shops  and  fences  where  questions  are  never 
asked, — these  are  the  settings  of  the  stage  on  which  the  children 


ETIOLOGY  OF  SOCIAL  DISEASES  IN  GENERAL    97 

of  the  slums  act  their  juvenile  parts,  act  them  so  well  that  they 
finally  glide  into  their  predestined  places  in  the  patchwork  of 
crime  and  prostitution  without  perceptible  transformation.  The 
teaching  and  example  of  the  drunkards,  hoboes,  thieves,  filthy 
personalities,  gamblers,  and  prostitutes  of  the  city  slums  are 
rarely  ineffective.  The  child  born  and  reared  amid  such  sur- 
roundings has  about  the  same  chance  of  escaping  a  life  of  shame 
or  crime  that  an  unvaccinated  baby  confined  in  a  pest-house 
would  have  of  escaping  smallpox.  It  is  not  surprising  that  there 
should  be  a  constant  and  endless  stream  of  thieves,  murderers, 
prostitutes,  mendicants,  lunatics,  epileptics  and  hospital  patients 
in  general  issuing  from  such  recruiting  stations  as  the  city  slums. 

Placed  in  the  same  or  similar  circumstances,  how  many  indi- 
viduals would  have  turned  out  better  than  the  children  of  the 
poor,  lapsed,  sunken  multitude  of  the  slums?  Here  is  the  key- 
note to  the  situation :  Criminals  and  moral  lepers  are  born  in 
the  atmosphere  of  moral  and  physical  rottenness  pervading  the 
slums  of  large  cities.  Here  are  bred  moral  and  physical  typhus. 
Here  arises  the  social  miasm,  the  poisonous  effluvium  that  taints 
both  blood  and  morals.  Here  is  the  fountain-head  of  the  river 
of  vice  and  crime.  Here  is  the  source  of  that  slimy  ooze  that 
preachers  and  moralists  talk  of  but  rarely  penetrate,  for  they 
study  social  problems  from  the  top.  Here  is  the  field  in  which 
General  Booth,  the  erstwhile  "  crank,"  has  made  himself  undying 
fame  as  a  philosophic  moralist,  to  the  everlasting  shame  of  some 
of  the  fashionable  religious  temples  of  our  grand  avenues. 

Misery,  poverty,  idleness,  drunkenness,  and  disease — these 
are  the  grandly  offensive  pillars  that  support  and  make  necessary 
our  reformatory  system,  yet  receive  no  attention  from  it.  Society 
permits  the  existence  of  social  cesspools,  and  taxes  honest  and 
industrious  people  to  stamp  out  its  results,  and  there  are  those 
who  believe  that  such  conditions  are  to  be  combated  by  dealing 
only  with  their  effects.  This  is  as  logical  as  treating  the  sick 
man  for  his  fever  and  forgetting  to  wash  out  some  infecting  sore 
which,  though  covered  from  sight,  ever  breeds  a  new  and  varied 
supply  of  putrescence  to  poison  his  blood. 

The  failure  of  the  State  to  keep  in  touch  with  childhood  and 


98  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

its  conditions  is  responsible  for  the  system  of  criminal  apprentice- 
ship in  vogue  in  every  large  city.  Boys  and  girls  are  trained  by 
expert  adult  criminals  in  all  varieties  of  crime.  Pocket-picking 
and  shoplifting  are  the  beginnings  upon  which  a  career  of 
trained,  expert  criminality  is  built.  Nearly  every  well-organized 
gang  of  thieves  has  its  juvenile  contingent.  These  children  are 
invaluable  aids  to  the  older  thieves,  serving  as  scouts,  pickets, 
and  a  bureau  of  information.  There  are  many  Fagins  in  our 
large  American  cities.  Dickens's  novel,  "  Oliver  Twist,"  has 
more  than  a  local  London  flavor. 

CHILD  LABOR 

The  child-labor  problem  is  one  of  the  most  important  factors 
in  the  causation  of  crime.  The  "  little  white  slave"  is  a  menace 
to  society  that  is  daily  and  hourly  growing  more  formidable. 
The  shutting  out  of  mirth  and  sunshine  from  childhood  is  hor- 
rible in  itself.  That  children  should  be  compelled  to  labor  during 
the  period  of  play  and  growth  is  worse.  The  idea  that  young 
children  should  be  compelled  to  enter  the  battle  of  life  for  sub- 
sistence, and  to  aid  in  the  support  of  their  elders,  is  not  com- 
forting to  one  who  has  a  normal  amount  of  the  milk  of  human 
kindness  in  his  composition.  The  fact  that  education  is  impos- 
sible to  children  who  labor  is  worthy  of  most  serious  considera- 
tion. Upon  the  health  and  training  of  children  the  very  founda- 
tion of  national  prosperity  rests.  Stunted  in  development, 
dwarfed  in  intellect,  impoverished  in  blood,  leading  existences 
into  which  "  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness"  enter  no 
more  than  they  do  into  the  existence  of  a  draught-horse,  the 
little  white  slave  is  an  embarrassment  to  the  present,  and  a  por- 
tent of  evil  to  future  generations.  The  coal  baron,  the  factory 
owner,  the  boss  of  the  sweat-shop,  and  the  autocrat  of  the  depart- 
ment store  care  naught  for  sentiment  on  the  child-labor  question. 
The  modern  Shylock  must  have  his  full  pound  of  flesh — and  he 
prefers  it  young  and  tender. 

The  child  of  four  toddles  off  to  the  breakers  in  the  coal-mines, 
children  not  yet  in  their  teens  bend  their  little  backs  at  the  looms, 
infants  scarce  out  of  their  swaddling  clothes  jump  at  the  cry  of 


ETIOLOG!t"  OF  SOCIAL  DISEASES  IN  GENERAL    99 

"  cash !" — and  our  country  spends  two  hundred  milhon  dollars 
annually  for  the  correction  of  crime.  We  are  spending  millions 
in  territorial  expansion,  which  expense  is  even  less  rational  than 
our  expenditures  for  jails  and  courts  ;  yet  children  must  work. 

That  illiteracy  is  increasing  in  the  little  white  slave  States 
statistics  show.  A  comparison  of  the  census  of  1900  with  that  of 
1890  as  to  the  relative  proportion  of  illiterate  children  from  ten  to 
fourteen  years  of  age  shows  some  alarming  figures : 

In  1890  Massachusetts  was  the  second  State  in  the  Union  in 
point  of  the  literacy  of  her  children, — that  is,  she  had  a  larger 
percentage  of  children  able  to  read  and  write  than  any  other 
State  except  Iowa.  Now  Massachusetts  stands  ninth.  Illinois, 
in  1890,  was  sixth ;  now  it  is  fifteenth.  New  York,  in  1890,  was 
eighth ;  now  it  is  fourteenth.  Pennsylvania  was  fifteenth  ;  now  it 
is  twentieth.  Ohio  was  third ;  now  it  is  fourth.  The  manufac- 
turing States  have  steadily  declined  in  the  scale ;  the  agricultural 
States  have  as  steadily  risen.    The  reason  is  not  far  to  seek. 

The  factory  inspectors  report  the  children  employed  to  be 
about  nine  thousand  in  Massachusetts,  sixteen  thousand  in  New 
York,  twenty  thousand  in  Illinois,  thirty-five  thousand  in  Penn- 
sylvania. These  are  merely  the  children  employed  in  factories. 
Besides  the  thirty-five  thousand  in  the  factories  of  Pennsylvania, 
probably  as  many  more  are  employed  in  the  mines,  under  the 
most  frightful  conditions. 

The  result  of  the  employment  of  child  labor  can  only  be 
degeneracy,  with  its  attendant  train  of  social  disease.  Future 
generations  shall  reap  the  harvest  we  are  sowing  to-day.  The 
relation  of  illiteracy  to  crime  is  so  plain  that  he  who  runs  may 
read.  Without  mental  training  brain  development  is  defective. 
Defective  brains  are  the  fountain-head  of  social  disease.  The 
child  criminal  is  something  of  which  civilization  should  be 
ashamed. 

Two  boys,  aged  fifteen  and  seventeen  respectively,  were 
recently  hanged  in  one  of  our  Southern  States  for  the  murder  of 
a  merchant  whose  store  they  were  burglarizing.  A  social  system 
in  which  such  deeds  as  the  murder  of  children  to  avenge  murder 
by  children  are  possible  has  little  to  boast  of.     Especially  is  this 


loo  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

true  of  a  State  in  which  human  life  is  held  so  cheap.  But  killing 
out  of  season  is  not  approved  down  there,  and,  besides,  there 
must  be  an  execution  once  in  a  while  to  show  that  the  killing  of 
men  is  considered  murder — sometimes. 

SUGGESTION    AND    CRIME THE    PRESS,    EVIL    LITERATURE,    AND 

THE   STAGE 

Suggestion  as  a  cause  of  crime  has  not  received  the  attention 
it  deserves.  The  foundation  of  criminality  being  usually  a 
neurosis, — an  unstable  equilibrium  of  the  centres  of  moral  control 
and  will, — it  is  obvious  that  the  conditions  are  favorable  to  the 
influence  of  suggestion.  The  various  phases  of  suggestion  in 
criminality  may  be  classified  as  follows : 

1.  Suggestion  by  mere  association  with  criminals. 

2.  Suggestion  by  the  press  and  pernicious  literature. 

3.  Active  suggestion  of  specific  criminal  acts  by  vicious  and 
depraved  persons. 

4.  Hypnotism. 

5.  Suggestion  imparted  by  the  apparent  safety  and  profit  of  a 
given  form  of  vice  or  crime. 

Probably  the  most  powerful  factor  of  suggestion  is  the  press, 
with  its  glaring,  sensational  headlines  and  vivid  accounts  of  mur- 
der, theft,  and  suicides.  The  neuropath  reads  of  a  great  em- 
bezzlement followed  by  successful  flight,  or  by  capture  which  he, 
in  his  superior  wisdom,  could  have  avoided ;  of  a  successful 
speculative  coup;  of  the  murder  of  a  guilty  or  suspected  wife; 
of  a  daring  hold-up  or  burglary ;  of  a  suicide — and  the  sugges- 
tion is  made.  The  result  depends  upon  the  environment  and 
existing  mental  bias  of  the  subject.  Most  often  the  suggestion 
results  only  in  brain-pictures  of  himself  committing  similar 
deeds;  only  too  frequently,  however,  the  impulse  to  go  and  do 
likewise  is  too  strong  to  be  resisted.  Literature  of  all  grades 
has  its  effect  in  criminal  suggestion.  The  dime  novel  of  youth 
is  a  dangerous  element  in  its  training;  one  that  has  often  led  to 
crime.  There  is  a  "  literary"  disposition  to  lionize  the  desperado 
that  is  disastrous  to  the  morals  of  boys.  Dick  Turpin,  Billy  the 
Kid,  the  Earps,  Wild  Bill,  Jesse  James,  and  Cole  Younger  are 


ETIOLOGY  OF  SOCIAL  DISEASES  IN  GENERAL     loi 

boyish  ideals.  Even  the  grown-ups  are  not  free  from  hero- 
worship  of  cut-throats,  as  witness  the  blanket  of  charity  and 
benevolence  with  which  the  public  has  covered  the  records  of  the 
surviving  members  of  the  James  and  Younger  families.  Yet 
boys  are  being  hanged  for  murder,  and  stealing  a  horse  on  the 
border  is  a  capital  crime.  Children  go  to  prison  for  trifling 
offences,  and  the  man  who  asserts  his  manhood  and  knocks  down 
an  insolent  blackguard  in  a  city  street  is  wont  to  be  arrested  and 
fined  for  assault.  There  is  something  so  heroic  about  holding  up 
a  train,  something  so  noble  about  going  through  a  man  when  one 
has  the  drop  on  him,  and  blowing  a  hole  in  his  anatomy  if  he 
resists,  that  we  must  needs  make  a  hero  of  the  desperado. 

The  influence  of  the  morbid  and  sensational  in  literature  has 
been  most  pernicious.  There  is  a  moral  or  psychic  contagium  in 
certain  books  that  is  as  definite  and  disastrous  as  that  of  the 
plague.  The  germs  of  psychopathy, — of  mental  ill  health, — are 
as  potent  in  their  way  and,  as  things  go  nowadays,  as  far-reach- 
ing in  evil  effects,  as  syphilis  or  leprosy.  The  average  lay  reader 
can  but  be  injured  by  prurient  realism ;  can  only  be  made  men- 
tally and  morally  sick  by  the  vagaries  of  certain  literary  para- 
noiacs.  The  pubescent  reader  is  in  the  greatest  danger  from 
unhealthful  reading.  He  or  she  is  in  a  condition  of  unstable 
equilibrium — adjustment  to  environment  is  not  yet  perfect;  the 
emotions  are  keyed  to  the  highest  pitch ;  the  centres  of  ideation 
are  plastic.  As  the  psychic  twig  is  bent  at  this  time,  the  cerebral 
tree  is  indeed  inclined.  Many  a  life  has  been  ruined  by  psychic 
wounds, — wounds  from  infected  and  infective  ideas  at  this  criti- 
cal period.  Especially  is  this  true  of  ideas  affecting  the  psycho- 
sexual  centres,  a  point  that  will  again  be  referred  to  later  on. 

The  boy  brigands,  robbers'  roosts  and  caves  of  the  boyish 
readers  of  yellow-backed  literature  are  treated  as  a  joke  by  most 
people,  but  careful  notation  of  the  numerous  bands  of  boy 
thieves  discovered  by  the  police  of  our  large  cities  puts  a  dif- 
ferent complexion  upon  the  matter.  The  car-barn  bandits  of 
Chicago  were  dime-novel  bred. 

The  direction  in  which  morbific  suggestions  will  bend  the 
vacillating  will  of  the  subject  is  determined  largely  by  accidental 


I02  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

influences.  Sexual  perversities,  crime,  and  especially  suicide, 
may  follow  according  to  circumstances.  The  melancholic  pubes- 
cent and  the  "  world  weary"  older  subject  alike  incline  to  suicide 
as  a  panacea  for  a  hyperesthetic  and  *'  unappreciated"  ego. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  cases  of  wife-murder  based  upon 
jealousy  and  followed  by  the  suicide  of  the  murderer  are  usually 
epidemic,  one  case  of  the  kind  being  followed  very  speedily  by  a 
number  of  others.  Here  the  suggestions  of  jealousy,  revenge, 
and  suicide  act  simultaneously.  The  detailed  descriptions  of 
wife-murder  and  suicide  appearing  in  the  newspapers  are  mainly 
responsible  for  the  multiplication  of  such  cases. 

Multiple  suicides  are  especially  likely  to  follow  gruesome  de- 
scriptions of  the  act  by  the  daily  press.  A  lovelorn  servant-girl 
poisons  herself  with  arsenic  or  carbolic  acid,  and  the  report  of 
her  suicide  is  followed  by  a  succession  of  others.  No  descrip- 
tion of  the  sufferings  of  persons  poisoned  by  arsenic  or  carbolic 
acid  is  sufficiently  horrible  to  deter  persons  of  unstable  mental 
equilibrium  from  the  same  act  when  once  the  suggestion  is 
experienced. 

An  abandoned  new-born  infant  was  found  in  the  snow  in 
Chicago  one  Christmas-day.  All  of  the  details  were  published 
in  the  newspapers.  Within  a  few  weeks  a  number  of  children 
were  abandoned  in  a  similar  manner.  There  were  plenty  of 
unwelcome  children,  whose  mothers  awaited  opportunity  to  rid 
themselves  of  their  burdens.  The  press  not  only  suggested  the 
act,  but  pointed  out  the  way. 

Under  the  somewhat  fallacious  caption  of  "  Indirect  Con- 
tagion," MacDonald  bears  testimony  to  the  power  of  suggestion 
in  causing  crime.^    Aubry  says,- — 

"  The  newspaper  admirably  points  out  to  clever  people  how  they  may 
succeed  without  risk  in  walking  on  the  margin  of  the  criminal  code,  and 
how  they  may  avoid  or  circumvent  some  dangerous  clause.  There  is 
also  another  side  of  the  question,  and  that  is  the  effects  which  criminal 

*  Criminology,  Arthur  MacDonald. 

'  Aubry,  Transactions  Congress  of  Criminal  Anthropology,  Geneva, 
1902. 


ETIOLOGY  OF  SOCIAL  DISEASES  IN  GENERAL     103 

details  produce  on  those  whose  nervous  systems  are  unstable;  they  may 
naturally  have  no  tendency  to  crime  at  all,  but  continually  reading  about 
.it  may  easily  excite  them  and  prove  a  dangerous  incentive  to  many  bad 
deeds  which  would  otherwise  have  been  unthought  of.  It  is  most  de- 
sirable that  the  details  of  criminal  reports  should  be  judiciously  cut  down 
before  publication. 

"  A  woman  of  Geneva  killed  her  four  children,  as  she  said,  '  As  a 
woman  did  it,  which  was  in  the  newspapers.'  A  lad  of  fifteen  stole  from 
his  patron ;  when  the  money  was  spent,  he  stabbed  a  child  in  the  abdomen 
and  afterwards  cut  its  throat,  saying,  '  I  have  often  read  novels,  and  in 
one  of  them  I  found  a  description  of  a  scene  similar  to  this  which  I 
have  executed.' 

"  The  publication  in  the  newspapers  of  criminal  details  and  photo- 
graphs is  a  positive  evil  to  society,  on  account  of  the  law  of  imitation. 
In  addition,  it  makes  the  criminal  proud  of  his  record,  and  excites  the 
morbid  curiosity  of  the  people,  affecting  especially  the  mentality  of  the 
weak." 

The  press  and  literature  in  general  should  be  held  responsible 
for  criminal  suggestion  only  in  so  far  as  they  inculcate  false 
moral  standards  in  undisciplined  minds  and  present  news  in  an 
unnecessarily  sensational  manner.  The  modern  newspaper  is  the 
great  educator  of  the  masses.  Its  publishers  should  remember 
the  tremendous  moral  influence  it  has  upon  the  public.  Public 
thought  and  public  morals  are  a  reflex  of  the  press.  The  news- 
paper is  supposed  to  be  a  reflector  of  public  opinion.  This,  as 
Nordau  says,  is  one  of  the  fallacies  of  civilization.'  The  self- 
appointed  newspaper  apostle  of  public  opinion  simply  presents 
his  own  ideas,  or  business  and  political  expressions,  and  labels 
them  "  Public  Opinion,"  knowing  that  in  due  time  they  will 
become  public  opinion — and  bring  grist  to  his  mill.  The  popular 
conception  of  the  relation  of  the  newspaper  to  public  opinion  is 
simply  a  confusion  of  propter  and  post. 

It  would  certaiply  be  illogical  and  unfair  to  the  press  to  hold 
it  responsible  for  the  degenerate  flotsam  and  jetsam  among  its 
readers.  It  should,  however,  be  held  responsible  where  it  takes 
advantage  of  the  specific  gravity  of  morals  and  caters  to  the  baser 
elements  of  normal  man,  and,  more  especially,  the  morbific  tastes 

'  Conventional  Lies  of  our  Civilization,  Max  Nordau. 


104  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

of  the  degenerate.  In  short,  the  press  should  discountenance 
yellow  journalism,  one  of  the  most  demoralizing  factors  in 
modern  civilization. 

Personally,  I  believe  that  whenever  a  newspaper  can  be  justly 
accused  of  being  despotic  and  cowardly,  while  masquerading 
under  the  bravery  of  absolute  safety  from  both  physical  and  legal 
assault ;  when  it  invades  unnecessarily  the  privacy  of  the  personal 
and  home  affairs  of  individuals ;  when  it  constrains  personal 
liberty  and  infringes  on  personal  rights;  when  it  is  accessory  to 
crime  before  the  fact  by  advertising  swindling  schemes ;  when 
it  panders  to  both  immorality  and  crime,  especially  by  advertising 
abortionists  and  their  remedies ;  when  it  caters  through  the  news 
columns  to  the  more  depraved  elements  of  human  nature ;  when 
it  perpetrates  frauds  by  publishing  untruths  or  half-truths  ;  when 
it  ruins  or  besmirches  reputations  with  no  possibility  of  the 
victim  being  set  right  or  getting  redress,  it  should  justly  be  im- 
peached for  prostituting  its  function  of  popular  educator  and 
disseminator  of  news. 

The  relation  of  disreputable  newspapers  to  blackmail  is  so 
direct  and  so  commonly  observed  that  it  requires  no  more  than 
mere  mention.  The  extent  to  which  blackmail  is  carried  on  by 
such  odious  publications  would  doubtless  startle  the  community 
if  it  were  generally  known. 

In  passing,  it  might  be  well  to  direct  attention  to  the  influence 
of  the  press  upon  legal  administration.  Press  opinions  and  news 
regarding  important  cases  have  arrived  at  the  point  where  all 
such  cases  have  been  tried  and  decided  in  the  newspapers  long 
before  they  go  to  the  jury. 

One  of  Chicago's  most  prominent  lawyers  once  remarked :  * 

"  In  celebrated  cases  trial  by  jury  is  converted  into  trial  by  news- 
paper; the  jury  is  packed  against  the  accused  with  prejudice,  class  inter- 
est, national  animosity,  or  prejudgment  of  the  issues;  the  perjurer  for 
the  prosecution  is  bold  and  generally  successful ;  the  rulings  of  some  of 
the  presiding  judges  are  commonly  believed  by  the  bar  to  be  influenced 
by  the  press,  and  popular  opinion  supersedes  the  law  of  the  land." 

*  William  S.  Forrest,  Transactions  Sunset  Club. 


ETIOLOGY  OF  SOCIAL  DISEASES  IN  GENERAL     105 

I  submit  that  under  prevailing  conditions  a  fair  trial  of  a 
momentous  case  is  a  Utopian  dream — a  cobweb  of  optimistic 
imagination.  In  regard  to  public  opinion,  it  is  to  be  remembered 
that  the  morals  and  intelligence  of  a  body  of  men  are,  in  general, 
inversely  to  their  numbers.  Mass  reason  is  simply  mass  impulse. 
Public  opinion,  as  viewed  by  the  psychologist,  is  a  dangerous 
judge  before  whom  to  try  a  man  for  his  life  or  liberty.  The 
average  juror  dreads  it,  and  gives  his  verdict  in  fear  and  trem- 
bling.   He  fears  newspaper  ridicule  and  criticism. 

A  very  important  factor  in  criminal  suggestion  is  the  fact  that 
crime  seems  to  be  relatively  safe  and  profitable.  The  gigantic 
swindler,  if  successful,  wins  a  far  greater  reward  than  thousands 
of  honest  laborers  do  collectively  during  the  same  period  of  time. 
Nor  does  he  run  such  risks  to  life  or  limb  as  does  the  average 
laborer.  A  single  mine  explosion  often  destroys  more  lives,  or 
injures  and  cripples  more  men,  than  are  executed  by  law,  lynched, 
or  injured  in  the  pursuit  of  criminal  occupations  in  a  given  com- 
munity during  many  years.  It  has  been  asserted  that  the  average 
professional  thief  gets  more  comfort  and  luxury,  and  loses  less 
time  from  his  vocation,  than  the  honest  workman.  Railroad  and 
seafaring  men,  and  those  employed  in  many  arts  and  manufac- 
tures, run  far  more  risk  than  the  average  footpad  or  burglar. 
There  are  professional  thieves  ih  every  large  city  who  are  well- 
to-do  and  have  never  been  caught.  Some  there  are  who  have 
acquired  enough  wealth  to  enable  them  to  retire  from  "  business" 
and  live  at  ease.  Labor  and  handicraft  hold  out  no  such  induce- 
ments. 

The  ratio  of  arrests  to  crimes,  and  of  commitments  to  arrests 
is  so  small  that  crime  does  not  seem  an  especially  hazardous 
occupation.  Taken  all  in  all,  even  murder  is  not  so  hazardous  a 
pastime  as  some  believe.  In  the  year  1895  there  were  ten  thou- 
sand murders  in  the  United  States,  and  only  two  hundred  ex- 
ecutions, including  lynchings.  The  statistics  for  1902  were 
similarly  suggestive.  The  figures  bear  also  upon  the  inequalities 
of  justice. 

Religious  fanaticism  has  operated  suggestively  in  the  pro- 
duction of  crimes.    Conversely,  it  acts  in  the  same  manner  in  the 


io6  THE   DISEASES   OF   SOCIETY 

deterrence  of  crime.  Radical  political  and  social  ideas  have  had 
the  same  effect  upon  degenerate  minds. 

True  hypnotism  as  a  cause  of  crime  is  infrequent,  but  its 
occasional  occurrence  should  not  be  forgotten.  Lombroso  cites 
many  examples  of  crime  committed  by  hysterical  women  under 
hypnosis.^ 

According  to  Charcot,  the  condition  of  a  hypnotized  subject 
may  be  one  of  lethargy,  catalepsy,  or  what  is  practically  som- 
nambulism.® The  two  former  may  be  left  out  of  consideration 
so  far  as  crime  is  concerned.  It  is  only  in  the  somnambulistic 
stage  that  the  subject  is  susceptible  to  suggestion.  A  fact  of 
medico-legal  importance  is  that,  on  awakening,  the  subject  for- 
gets his  actions  while  asleep,  and  remembers  them  again  only 
when  hypnotized.  It  is  obvious  that  the  conditions  surrounding 
hypnotism  are  such  that  it  can  hardly  be  said  to  be  an  important 
factor  in  the  production  of  crime.  The  fact  that  it  has  been 
brought  forward  as  a  factor  in  the  crime  of  rape,  itself  justifies 
the  suspicion  that  there  is  likely  to  be  much  of  humbug  in  the 
hypnotic  theory  of  the  cause  of  any  given  crime.  Authentic 
cases  must  be  rare. 

The  minor  degrees  of  suggestion  are  much  more  important 
than  hypnotism  in  criminal  etiology.  It  is  an  unmeasurable 
quantity  in  crime,  but,  as  already  shown,  enters  largely  into  the 
causation  of  crime  in  general. 

The  stage  has  a  place  in  criminal  suggestion.  Often,  it  is 
true,  the  stage  points  a  moral  and  adorns  a  tale,  showing  vice 
and  crime  as  it  is,  but  it  goes  without  the  saying  that  the  worse 
elements  of  the  stage  exert  a  much  more  powerful  influence  for 
evil  than  its  moral  teachings  do  for  good.  Human  nature  travels 
along  the  lines  of  least  resistance.  The  specific  gravity  of  morals 
— the  brute  beneath  the  thin  veneer  of  civilization  and  refinement 
— drags  down  with  a  force  well-nigh  irresistible  at  all  times, 
and  is  especially  likely  to  overpower  the  victim  of  stage  immor- 


The  Female  Offender. 

Crime  and  Hypnotism,  J.  M.  Charcot. 


ETIOLOGY  OF  SOCIAL  DISEASES  IN  GENERAL     107 

ality.     Given  the  "  psychic  moment,"  and  the  average  young 
person  is  disastrously  influenced  by  sensational  plays. 

DEFECTIVE   AND   CORRUPT    LEGAL    MACHINERY 

Corruption,  venality,  ignorance,  and  political  taint  pervade 
the  machinery  of  justice  in  every  social  system.  The  resultant 
unjust  and  unequal  dispensation  of  law  is  a  potent  factor  in  the 
causation  of  crime.  From  top  to  bottom — from  the  little  justice 
shop,  where  a  barrel  of  ignorance  is  regularly  mixed  with  a 
teaspoonful  of  justice,  to  the  dignified  court  wherein  a  barrel  of 
legal  lore  is  mixed  with  as  much  justice  as  accident  may  de- 
termine— criminal  law  is  tainted  with  maladministration  and 
unfairness.  The  man  who  is  disproportionately  punished,  and 
the  man  who  is  innocent  yet  is  convicted,  acquire  a  resentment 
against  society  that  incites  to  crime.  The  guilty  man  who  is 
acquitted,  or  receives  a  sentence  lighter  than  he  deserves,  is  made 
more  confident  in  the  safety  of  crime.  Should  he  be  freed 
through  "  pull,"  or  by  a  clever  lawyer,  and  especially  if  the  jury 
is  fixed,  he  becomes  bolder  than  ever.  When  an  eminent  lawyer, 
practising  at  the  Chicago  bar,  expresses  himself  as  follows, 
something  is  certainly  wrong: 

"  There  are  wrongs  in  the  administration  of  criminal  law  in  Cook 
County,  wrongs  against  the  accused,  wrongs  against  society,  wrongs 
against  the  letter  and  the  spirit  of  the  constitution  of  the  State.  What 
are  some  of  these  wrongs?  The  rich  and  powerful  are  seldom  indicted 
and  never  tried — well,  '  hardly  ever.'  The  Criminal  Court  of  Cook 
County  exists  only  to  punish  the  poor  and  the  vulgar.  Manslaughter  is 
committed  by  corporations  with  impunity.  Men  are  convicted  who  are 
innocent.  Even  in  ordinary  trials  the  forms  of  law  are  frequently  set 
aside  and  the  rules  of  evidence  ignored."  ^ 

The  only  too  frequent  practice  of  appointing  incompetent, 
sometimes  unscrupulous,  and  inexperienced  lawyers  to  the  State's 
attorney's  office  through  political  pull  is  a  fearful  evil.  The  only 
recompense  for  their  labors,  aside  from  a  pittance  of  a  salary,  is 
the  fame  accruing  from  convicting  somebody  of  crime.     And 


^  William  S.  Forrest,  Transactions  Sunset  Club. 


io8  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

convict  him  they  often  will,  on  any  sort  of  evidence,  if  he  does 
not  employ  a  cunning  and  perhaps  not  overscrupulous  lawyer. 
The  conscientious  and  capable  man  in  public  service  is  invariably 
overworked,  so  that  he  has  little  chance  to  rise  above  the  mire  of 
the  system  of  which  he  is  a  part. 

The  law  is  often  fair  and  impartial  enough  on  its  face,  yet  is 
applied  and  administered  with  an  evil  eye  and  unequal  hand. 
Unjust  discriminations  are  thus  often  made  between  persons  in 
the  same  circumstances,  that  obviously  are  not  in  harmony  with 
either  the  letter  or  the  spirit  of  the  Constitution. 

The  packing  and  bribing  of  juries  is  not  unknown  in  our 
courts,  and  their  possibility  casts  a  cloud  over  the  entire  system 
of  criminal  law.  The  absurdities  of  criminal  law  are  so  multi- 
tudinous that  it  is  almost  invidious  to  select  examples. 

In  an  election  in  Chicago,  once  upon  a  time,  two  men,  Mackin 
and  Gleason,  were  convicted  of  ballot-box  "  stuffing."  Mackin,  a 
Democrat,  was  sent  to  the  penitentiary;  Gleason,  a  Republican, 
had  his  sentence  suspended.  The  Supreme  Court  afterwards 
ruled  that  no  crime  had  been  committed  by  either  man. 

A  thief,  who  had  stolen  a  diamond  ring,  was  recommended  to 
the  mercy  of  the  magistrate  by  the  State's  attorney,  who  said 
that  he  hoped  the  justice  would  not  hold  the  prisoner  to  the 
Criminal  Court,  but  would  give  him  another  chance.  It  was 
afterwards  shown  that  the  thief  had  influence  which  caused  the 
prosecutor  to  turn  his  office  into  an  attorneyship  for  the  defence, 
before  the  accused  man  had  even  reached  the  tribunal  where 
major  criminals  are  arraigned. 

On  the  arrest  of  six  burglars  for  the  plundering  of  a  store, 
it  was  found  that  one  of  the  thieves  was  a  well-known  offender, 
who  had  been  under  arrest  as  a  burglar  six  times  before  but  had 
never  come  to  trial,  a  relative  in  a  municipal  department  having 
pleaded  so  well  each  time  that  the  authorities  had  given  him 
"  another  chance." 

One  S.  M.  was  tried  for  murder.  He  was  convicted  on  one 
man's  direct  testimony.  All  the  other  testimony  was  purely  cir- 
cumstantial. P.,  the  man  who  testified  against  him,  was  con- 
victed of  being  an  accessory,  on  his  own  confession.    S.  M.  was 


ETIOLOGY  OF  SOCIAL  DISEASES  IN  GENERAL     109 

convicted  and  sentenced  to  twenty-two  years  in  the  Illinois  peni- 
tentiary. Some  months  later  F.  confessed  that  his  testimony  was 
entirely  false,  and  that  he  was  instigated  to  commit  perjury  by 
the  promise  of  money,  which  he  never  received. 

Some  young  women  were  sitting  on  the  front  stoop  of  their 
home  in  New  York  City  one  fine  evening.  A  loafer  entered  the 
gate  and  insulted  them.  Their  brother,  who  was  near  by,  rushed 
to  the  scene  and  struck  the  man  in  the  face,  knocking  him  down 
the  steps  and  killing  him.  For  this  he  received  five  years  at  the 
Island. 

A  certain  "  bishop,"  convicted  of  starving  to  death  children 
committed  to  his  care,  was  sent  to  Blackwell's  Island  for  sev- 
eral years.  Through  church  influence  the  "  Reverend"  brute  was 
made  door-keeper  at  the  hospital,  which  gave  him  time  to  write 
his  memoirs,  "  From  Pulpit  to  Prison."  Unfortunately  no  ap- 
pendix, "  From  Prison  to  Morgue,"  was  written  for  its  author, 
and  through  the  intercession  of  his  sectarian  friends  he  was 
eventually  pardoned. 

A  Russian  nobleman.  Count  X.,  was  sent  to  the  Island  for 
petty  theft.  He  was  in  the  last  stages  of  tuberculosis,  and 
starving.  He  stole  so  that  he  might  compel  the  police  to  feed 
and  house  him.  He  died  three  months  later.  He  was  a  political 
exile  who  had  fled  from  Russia  to  the  land  of  liberty  and 
starvation. 

Some  of  the  most  hardened  criminals  were  wont  to  be  enter- 
tained and  fed  most  luxuriously  at  Blackwell's  Island.  Beds  in 
the  hospital  and  all  the  comforts  of  life  were  assigned  to  strong 
and  healthy  men  and  women  with  a  pull,  whilst  sick  ones  were 
allowed  to  remain  in  the  cells  for  lack  of  hospital  accommoda- 
tions.   The  surgeon  was  helpless ;  the  warden  was  supreme. 

A  woman  inmate  of  the  State  Immigrant  Hospital  at  Ward's 
Island,  New  York,  during  my  service  in  that  institution,  was 
poisoned  by  her  husband,  who  gave  her  a  pie  surreptitiously. 
She  treated  some  of  the  other  patients  to  the  pie,  and  all  had 
symptoms  of  arsenical  poisoning.  The  woman  herself  died. 
After  some  difficulty  I  succeeded  in  getting  the  coroner's  office 
to  take  cognizance  of  the  case.      The  deputy  who  made  the 


no  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

autopsy  said,  "  The  woman  did  not  die  of  poison,  but  of  gas- 
tritis, so  there's  no  use  in  analyzing  the  stomach  contents."  De- 
spite the  history  of  this  case,  no  further  attention  was  paid  to  it 
by  the  authorities. 

In  a  certain  Southern  city  between  fifty  and  sixty  homicides 
have  been  committed  within  the  last  twenty-five  or  thirty  years. 
In  one  affray  between  the  chief  of  police  and  his  friends,  on  one 
side,  and  the  sheriff  and  his  friends,  on  the  other,  five  men  were 
killed  and  several  severely  wounded.  No  one  has  ever  been 
executed  for  any  of  these  murders,  and  the  few  assassins  who 
have  been  sentenced  have  been  speedily  pardoned  out.  Yet  the 
city  has  plenty  of  law.  A  man  thrashed  another  there  for  an 
alleged  insult  to  his  wife.  The  avenger  was  arrested  and  fined 
for  two  offences, — viz.,  assault,  and  carrying  concealed  weapons. 
He  was  mulcted  ten  dollars  in  each  case  for  the  prosecuting 
attorney's  fees,  and  a  double  charge  was  made  for  constable's 
fees.  All  told,  the  expense  of  resenting  the  insult  to  his  wife 
was  about  eighty-five  dollars.  Fine  distinctions  are  thus  drawn 
in  some  communities  between  carrying  deadly  weapons  and  using 
them  with  deadly  effect.  Thrashing  a  man  is  against  established 
customs;  shooting  him  is  in  accordance  with  the  spirit  of  the 
old  regime — which  still  lives.  Czolgosz,  "  Anarchist,"  murdered 
a  President,  and  within  six  weeks  was  electrocuted.  Had  he  been 
a  wealthy  man,  and  his  victim  a  plain  citizen,  it  might  have  re- 
quired several  years  to  convict  him,  if,  indeed,  he  did  not  go  scot 
free,  as  witness  the  trial  of  Maxwell,  the  murderer  of  Preller, 
in  St.  Louis,  who  was  a  long  time  in  getting  his  deserts. 

In  a  recent  murder  trial  of  general  publicity,  the  accused  was 
convicted  and  sentenced  to  death.  His  wealthy  father  bank- 
rupted himself  to  save  his  son,  who,  after  four  years'  imprison- 
ment, was  acquitted.  During  this  time,  how  keen  his  sufferings ! 
how  fearful  the  oscillations  of  his  mind  between  hope  and  de- 
spair !  His  life  was  saved,  but  his  health  was  wrecked  and  his 
poor  old  father  bankrupted.  The  following  propositions  are 
obvious : 

I.  Whether  guilty  or  innocent,  only  the  expenditure  of 
money  saved  this  man  from  execution. 


ETIOLOGY  OF  SOCIAL  DISEASES  IN  GENERAL     iii 

2.  Having  proved  his  innocence, — for  his  acquittal  is  at  law 
tantamount  to  proving  his  innocence, — he  has  no  means  of  re- 
dress for  his  suffering,  loss  of  time,  and  besmirched  reputation, 
nor  can  his  father  secure  reimbursement  of  the  hard-earned 
dollars  he  expended  to  keep  the  law  from  murdering  his  son. 
In  whatever  light  it  is  regarded,  only  the  hazard  of  a  life  re- 
deemed the  trial  from  the  dignity  of  a  farce  comedy. 

The  world  has  not  forgotten  the  Dreyfus  case,  the  blackest 
spot  on  the  jurisprudence  of  any  modern  nation. 

The  reputation  besmirching,  insult,  intimidation,  and  bullying 
of  witnesses — prerogatives  of  the  lawyer — is  one  of  the  many 
obstructions  in  the  path  of  justice.  Competent  and  valuable  wit- 
nesses are  often  kept  off  the  stand  by  fear  alone.  Many  attorneys 
take  advantage  of  the  situation  and  offer  insults  to  witnesses  that 
they  would  not  dare  breathe  in  their  presence  outside  of  court. 
And  the  judge  sits  solemnly  by  and  permits  affronts  to  helpless 
manhood  and  womanhood — helpless  because  of  the  sanctity  and 
dignity  of  the  court.  Oftentimes  the  dignity  of  the  court  is  not 
only,  as  De  Montaigne  says,  "  that  mysterious  carriage  of  the 
body  which  serves  to  conceal  defects  of  the  mind,"  but  a  mask 
beneath  which  lurks  a  smallness  of  soul  and  an  atrophy  of  the 
moral  sense  that  would  disgrace  a  chimpanzee  fresh  from  the 
African  woods.  But  so  long  as  there  are  courts,  so  long  will 
cowards  and  blackguards  maltreat  witnesses  under  the  benevo- 
lent protection  of  small-souled  judges.  Meanwhile,  it  does  not 
require  much  acumen  to  determine  the  chances  of  a  fair  trial 
in  many  courts  of  law.  The  seeds  of  redemption,  perhaps,  lie 
in  the  fact  that  there  are  many  men  practising  and  dispensing 
law  whose  finer  sensibilities  revolt  at  the  ways  of  some  famous 
cross-examiners,  and  at  the  tolerance  of  blackguardism  exhibited 
by  some  men  upon  the  bench. 

POLICE   AND   JUSTICE-SHOP    METHODS 

Police  perjury  is  not  to  be  ignored  in  the  etiology  of 
crime.  The  officer  who  is  ambitious  to  make  a  "  record"  is  not 
always  particular  as  to  methods.  Ofttimes  his  list  of  "  let  'ein 
alones"  among  the  real  criminals  is  so  large  that  he  is  at  his 


112  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

wits'  end  for  something  to  make  a  record  from.    As  Mr.  Forrest 
remarks :  ^ 

"  Great  wrong  is  done  in  the  administration  of  criminal  law  by  per- 
jury on  the  part  of  police  witnesses.  I  admit  that  some  of  the  best  men 
in  the  city  are  to-day  on  the  police  force;  yet  police  perjury  is  common 
Happily,  however,  the  perjurer  in  blue  usually  lacks  the  capacity  to  make 
his  villany  eflfective.  It  is  difficult  to  convince  good  men,  unacquainted 
with  city  life,  that  some  policemen  ever  invent  a  lie  to  convict  the 
accused,  if  he  believes  him  to  be  guilty.  Yet  it  is  so  common  that  it  is 
often  safe  for  counsel  for  the  defendant  to  rely  merely  upon  the  fabrica- 
tions and  inventions  of  the  police  witnesses  in  order  to  obtain  an 
acquittal." 

Civil  service  has  changed  conditions  a  little  since  Mr.  Forrest 
made  these  remarks,  but,  in  the  main,  they  still  hold  good. 
Human  nature  and  politics  have  not  changed,  as  evidenced  by 
the  recent  work  of  the  Graft  Commission  in  Chicago. 

One  of  the  most  unjust,  cruel,  and  illogical  methods  of  the 
police  is  the  "  sweat-box."  The  extremes  to  which  the  officials 
will  go  to  extort  a  confession  from  an  accused  prisoner  will 
probably  never  be  known  to  the  public  at  large.  The  only  wit- 
ness of  police  methods  who  is  likely  to  tell  of  them  is  the 
prisoner,  and  his  evidence  does  not  carry  much  weight.  There 
is  a  growing  suspicion,  however,  that  were  the  whole  truth 
known,  the  sweat-box  would  be  found  to  be  often  characterized 
by  extreme  brutality.  The  psychic  torment  to  which  many 
prisoners  are  subjected  is  alone  sufficient  in  some  cases  to  extort 
a  confession  of  guilt  from  an  innocent  person.  The  element  of 
psychic  suggestion  enters  largely  into  the  alleged  confessions  of 
some  individuals.  In  some  instances  it  is  probable  that  the 
accused  confesses  to  rid  himself  of  torment. 

That  actual  physical  abuse  is  sometimes  inflicted  upon  prison- 
ers in  the  attempt  to  extort  a  confession  is  beyond  peradventure 
of  doubt.  The  police  act  upon  the  preconceived  theory  of  guilt, 
and  their  mistaken  notions  of  duty,  to  say  nothing  of  their  ambi- 
tion for  a  record  of  efficiency,  may  lead  them  to  leave  no  stone 

'Transactions  Sunset  Club. 


ETIOLOGY  OF  SOCIAL  DISEASES  IN  GENERAL     113 

unturned  in  establishing  guilt.  In  the  case  of  young  prisoners, 
and  women,  particularly,  the  sweat-box  is  a  dangerous  and  unjust 
means  of  inquiry.  Whether  it  is  ever  fair  to  attempt  to  coerce 
an  accused  person  into  a  confession  of  guilt  is  open  to  question. 
In  any  event,  such  coercion  should  be  conducted  with  great  cir- 
cumspection and  hedged  about  with  safeguards  against  inhumane 
methods  and  extremes  of  psychic  abuse.  The  harassed  mind  of 
the  prisoner  is  quite  likely  to  evolve  something  which  the  biased 
energies  of  the  police  can  distort  into  a  "  confession."  This  fact 
is  patent  to  any  one  who  knows  even  the  rudiments  of  psy- 
chology. 

When  courts  are  biased,  oppressed,  and  hampered  by  popu- 
lar clamor,  the  chances  of  a  criminal  for  a  fair  trial  are  very 
slender.  Judge  Dignity  on  the  bench  and  Judge  Lynch  on  the 
rum-barrel  seem  much  alike  as  they  rise  on  the  crest  of  the  wave 
of  popular  opinion — or  popular  rage.  In  a  defence  of  the  bench, 
a  distinguished  Chicago  lawyer  simply  confirms  my  view  of  the 
psychic  principle  involved : 

"  We  read  of  judicial  murders  in  England  in  the  days  of  Titus  Oates 
and  the  Popish  plot.  We  read  of  judicial  murders  in  Paris  during  the 
Reign  of  Terror.  We  read  of  judicial  murders  in  Massachusetts  in  the 
times  of  Cotton  Mather  and  witchcraft.  But  it  was  not  the  Popish  plot, 
real  or  fabricated,  nor  the  French  Revolution,  nor  witchcraft,  that  was 
the  immediate  cause  of  those  judicial  murders.  The  immediate  cause  of 
those  awful  murders  was  the  popular  fury,  the  temporary  rage  of  the 
multitude,  which  overthrew  the  law." ' 

As  an  illustration  of  the  logic  of  justice-shop  law,  here  is  an 
example : 

A  man,  fifty  years  of  age,  was  under  arraignment  for  his 
first  oflFence.  He  had  stolen  some  twelve  dollars,  in  small 
amounts,  from  the  department  store  in  which  he  was  employed 
at  a  small  salary.  His  plea  was  previous  good  character  and 
necessity,  his  wife  and  mother  being  sick.  The  justice  fined  him 
ten  dollars  and  costs.     If  he  was  guilty  of  stealing,  and  punish- 

•W.  S.  Elliott,  Jr.,  Transactions  Sunset  Club. 
8 


114  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

ment  was  to  be  meted  out,  a  fine  was  neither  adequate  nor  logical. 
If  he  stole  from  necessity,  the  imposition  of  a  fine  and  costs 
should  scarcely  tend  to  discourage  future  theft,  but  rather  to 
compel  its  commission.  I  at  first  thought  that  the  magistrate 
was  suffering  from  illogical  philanthropy.  He  explained,  how- 
ever, that  if  he  bound  the  prisoner  over  to  the  Criminal  Court, 
"  his  employers  would  have  to  waste  a  lot  of  time  appearing  to 
prosecute."  The  usual  plan  is  to  send  the  offender  to  the  Bride- 
well to  work  out  his  fine,  and,  if  he  is  a  tender  sprig  of  recent 
criminality,  or  a  "  drunk,"  to  have  his  education  in  crime  rounded 
out  to  full  fruition.  Such  absurdities  in  the  management  of 
crime  are  so  common  that  one  grows  weary  and  disgusted  in 
the  contemplation  of  them,  and  loses  all  confidence  in  our  laws 
and  penal  system  as  correctives  and  preventives  of  crime. 

POLICE   PERSECUTION 

When  Victor  Hugo  wrote  "Les  Miserables,"  he  gave  us  in 
poor  Jean  Valjean  the  prototype  of  many  poor  devils  in  all  civil- 
ized social  systems.  Many  a  poor  fellow  has  been  hounded  and 
watched  by  the  police  after  he  has  "  done  time"  until,  finding  all 
other  avenues  of  escape  closed  to  him,  he  has  broken  back  into 
jail.  He  must  live,  and  as  society  offers  no  alternative, — for 
nobody  will  employ  him,  and  the  police  keep  him  constantly  on 
the  rack  for  crimes  he  might  commit, — he  must  steal  to  live. 
But  it  is  not  invariably  thus.  The  watchfulness  of  the  police  is 
not  always  incited  by  a  due  regard  for  the  protection  of  the  com- 
munity. The  ex-convict  with  no  "  pull"  and  no  resources  is  the 
one  who  is  persona  non  grata  with  the  police ;  the  "  protected" 
criminal  gets  along  comfortably  enough.  The  fellow  without  a 
pull  has  a  stronger  chance  of  getting  into  jail  in  the  first  place, 
and  much  less  chance  of  retaining  his  liberty  once  he  emerges 
from  his  involuntary  cloister.  But  police  officials  must  live,  and 
reputations  must  be  made  at  somebody's  expense.  The  "  gun" 
with  a  strong  pull  is  not  available,  so  the  petty  thieves  must  take 
the  consequences.  The  manner  in  which  some  police  officials  in 
our  large  cities  will  strain  every  nerve  to  put  a  suspected  man 
permanently  behind  the  bars  or  on  the  scaffold  sets  one's  teeth 


ETIOLOGY  OF  SOCIAL  DISEASES  IN  GENERAL     115 

on  edge.  The  officer  is  desirous  of  making  himself  "  solid  with 
the  front  office,"  and  is  perforce  compelled  to  go  outside  the 
circle  of  the  elect — the  "  friends  of  the  office" — for  his  material. 
The  overzealous,  honest  officer  sometimes  runs  against  a  snag  by 
ignorantly  attempting  to  show  his  efficiency  by  capturing  and 
prosecuting  a  protected  thief. 

The  acquittal  of  a  suspected  man  or  woman  is  a  serious  blow 
to  the  ambitious  officer,  whose  sentiments  would  be  very  com- 
mendable were  he  always  really  convinced  of  the  suspect's  guilt. 
The  suggestion  of  guilt  of  possible  criminals  hovers  over  the 
psychic  area  of  the  policeman  like  a  gigantic  bat,  and  tinges  with 
unfairness  the  minds  even  of  conscientious  officers.  From  this 
psychic  bias  to  wilful  persecution  from  selfish  motives  is  but  a 
step. 

INEQUALITY   OF    PUNISHMENT 

Inequality  of  sentences  is  a  blot  upon  criminal  jurisprudence. 
Penalties  for  the  same  crimes  vary  in  different  States.  Penalties 
for  identically  the  same  crimes  also  vary  in  any  given  locality. 
The  personal  bias  of  judges  and  the  psychic  status  of  the  juries 
are  especially  responsible  in  this  connection.  The  convict  who 
is  the  victim  of  an  unjust  discrimination  is  made  so  rebellious 
that  reformation  is,  in  his  case,  an  iridescent  dream,  and  revenge 
becomes  his  watchword. 


THE    CLIMACTERIC 

The  relations  of  the  climacteric  to  immorality  and  crime  in  the 
female  is  very  obvious,  and  familiar  to  every  neurologist,  espe- 
cially as  associated  with  insanity  and  hysteria.  It  requires  noth- 
ing more  than  mere  mention  here,  as  developing  latent  degen- 
eracy in  women.  Statistics  show  that  the  proportion  of  women 
who  begin  a  life  of  crime  at  or  about  middle  life  is  larger  than 
that  of  men  at  the  same  period. 

The  possibility  of  a  critical  period  in  the  life  of  the  male— 
what  may  be  termed  a  psychic  climacteric— and  comparable  to 
the  climacteric  of  the  female,  has  suggested  itself  to  a  few  modern 
writers.     It  has,  however,  in  its  possible  relations  to  crime  and 


ii6  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

moral  offences,  received  little,  if  any,  attention  at  the  hands  of 
scientific  investigators.  It  is  noticeable  that  many  men  become 
morally  perverted  at  about  the  mid-period  of  life.  This  is  espe- 
cially true  in  America,  where  life  is  so  strenuous  that  a  success- 
ful man  at,  or  even  before,  middle  life  is  like  a  pugilist  who  has 
won  a  great  battle,  but  is  so  beaten  up  that  for  him  life  holds  no 
further  victories.  The  successful  American  business  or  pro- 
fessional man  is  often  a  profound  neurasthenic  at  thirty-five, 
whilst  at  forty  or  forty-five  years  of  age  he  is  not  infrequently  a 
physical  and  mental  wreck.  He  may  be,  like  the  apples  of 
Sodom,  fair  to  look  upon,  but  the  oil  is  well-nigh  out  of  his  lamp 
of  life.  The  damaged  arteries,  heart,  and  kidneys  tell  the  tale. 
In  addition  he  is  fighting  against  a  natural  handicap  common  to 
all  men, — viz.,  a  nervous  change  corresponding  to  the  menopause 
in  women.  This  does  not  show  as  a  physio-sexual  change,  but 
very  frequently  is  psycho-sexual.  It  may  not  manifest  itself  in 
psycho-sexual  aberration,  but  in  moral  degeneracy  in  general. 
Woe  to  him  to  whom  temptation  comes  whilst  such  changes  are 
occurring  in  his  physical  and  mental  organization.  Honor,  duty, 
love  of  family, — all  the  elements  that  go  to  make  up  his  con- 
science,— are  likely  to  be  sacrificed  on  the  altar  of  his  hyperes- 
thetic  ego.  That  most  physiologists  will  hold  adversely  to  this 
view  is  probable,  but  the  records  of  criminals,  the  divorce  courts, 
and  the  revelations  of  the  consulting-room  show  many  things 
which  might  lead  one  to  the  conclusion  that  science  is  sometimes 
lame  and  blind  in  the  study  of  the  causes  of  perverted  psychology. 
I  recently  had  occasion  to  refer,  in  a  discussion,  to  the  fore- 
going point  in  the  etiology  of  crime,  and,  with  the  view  of  sup- 
porting my  position,  investigated  the  histories  of  all  of  the  men  of 
previously  high  social  and  business  standing  committed  to  Joliet 
penitentiary  for  the  past  four  or  five  years,  whose  names  appeared 
in  the  report  of  the  State's  attorney's  office.  These  men  were 
sentenced  for  defalcation,  misappropriation  of  moneys,  breaches 
of  trust,  etc.  None  of  them  had  a  previous  criminal  record.  All 
were  respected  citizens.  One,  a  banker,  had  a  record  of  phi- 
lanthropy behind  him.  I  know  of  many  kind  acts  that  he  had 
performed,  entailing  upon  him  monetary  losses  or  expenditure. 


ETIOLOGY  OF  SOCIAL  DISEASES  IN  GENERAL     117 

Another,  I  always  considered  a  neuropath.  He  was  a  hard 
drinker  in  his  young  adult  age,  but  reformed,  joined  the  church, 
and  preached  temperance  and  religion — almost  fanatically.  He 
had  no  criminal  record,  although,  as  a  member  of  the  City  Coun- 
cil, he  was  considered  one  of  the  "  Gray  Wolves."  He  was  always 
deemed  a  sharp  man  in  a  trade,  who  was  never  likely  to  get  the 
"  short  end  of  the  deal."  One  of  these  men  I  knew  to  be  pre- 
viously an  honest,  industrious,  and  most  exemplary  man.  He 
was  dragged  into  crime  by  his  bank  superior,  who  found  him,  at 
the  age  of  fifty,  pliable  material. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  the  youngest  man  was  thirty-three,  and 
the  next  youngest,  thirty-seven.  One  was  thirty-eight,  and  the 
other  eight  above  forty  years  of  age ;  only  three,  however,  being 
above  fifty,  and  the  oldest  being  only  fifty-five.  I  submit  the 
cases  and  ages  without  further  comment.  To  the  discerning 
mind  they  tell  their  own  story : 

C.  W.  S.,  age  when  received  at  Joliet  Penitentiary,  55. 
T.  H.  S.,  age  when  received  at  Joliet  Penitentiary,  46. 
W.  S.  Y.,  age  when  received  at  Joliet  Penitentiary,  55. 
C.  E.  G.,  age  when  received  at  Joliet  Penitentiary,  38. 
G.  B.,  age  when  received  at  Joliet  Penitentiary,  33. 
W.  O.  M.,  age  when  received  at  Joliet  Penitentiary,  46. 

F.  L.,  age  when  received  at  Joliet  Penitentiary,  49. 

M.  P.  K.,  age  when  received  at  Joliet  Penitentiary,  44. 
E.  S.  D.,  age  when  received  at  Joliet  Penitentiary,  57. 
R.  B.,  age  when  received  at  Joliet  Penitentiary,  50. 

G.  L.  M.,  age  when  received  at  Joliet  Penitentiary,  S7- 


The  frequency  with  which  men  past  middle  life  begin  for  the 
first  time  to  abuse  their  families  and  plunge  into  sexual  de- 
bauchery is  a  matter  of  common  observation.  Surely  there  must 
be  a  physical  cause  for  such  conduct  on  the  part  of  hitherto  kind, 
loving,  and  indulgent  fathers  and  exemplary  husbands.  That  a 
psychic  climacteric  has  much  to  do  with  these  cases  I  am  fully 
convinced.  Alcoholism  begun  at  middle  life  is  susceptible  of  a 
similar  explanation  in  many  instances,  and,  once  begun,  bears  a 
most  intimate  relation  to  immoral  and  criminal  acts. 


ii8  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 


THE    INDUSTRIAL    PROBLEM 

The  question  of  economics  and  industrial  conditions  is  to-day 
the  most  important  of  all  phases  of  the  social  disease  problem. 
The  more  important  points  involved  will  be  discussed  in  the 
chapter  on  Anarchy.  I  will  here  allude  only  to  the  enforced 
idleness  that  results  from  commercial,  financial,  and  industrial 
disturbances.  Mere  idleness  is  demoralizing,  and  when  to  it  grim 
necessity  is  added,  the  weaker  elements  of  the  working  classes 
are  likely  to  succumb  to  temptation  to  take,  in  any  way  possible, 
that  which  the  idler  who  is  willing  to  work  naturally  feels  is  his 
due.  That  a  rebellious  and  unruly  spirit,  one  which  sets  social 
law  at  defiance,  should  develop  in  the  man  whose  children  are 
crying  for  bread,  and  who  himself  feels  the  pangs  of  hunger  and 
the  chill  of  winter,  is  not  surprising.  The  instinct  of  self-preser- 
vation is  strong,  and  it  requires  great  moral  stamina  to  rise 
superior  to  it.  Crime  once  begun,  the  downward  road  may 
seem  to  be  the  direction  of  least  resistance.  It  is  noticeable, 
however,  that  in  Europe,  during  times  of  commercial  and  financial 
depression,  women  employed  as  servants  often  enter  a  life  of 
prostitution,  only  to  leave  it  and  re-enter  domestic  service  as  soon 
as  times  are  easy  again.  The  same  is  true  of  crime  among  the 
working  classes.  The  average  is  high  during  hard  times,  but 
falls  again  when  circumstances  become  less  necessitous.  Crime 
rises  and  falls  with  the  price  of  food  products  and  fuel.  The 
coal  baron,  the  wheat  manipulator,  trusts  and  monopolies  must 
share  the  responsibility  for  the  increase  in  crime  that  attends 
a  coal  or  wheat  corner,  or  follows  the  marked  increase  in  the 
"  fixed  charges"  of  living,  occurring  from  time  to  time. 

The  laboring  classes  by  no  means  suflFer  the  most  during  hard 
times,  or  when  some  fortuitous  circumstance  throws  them  out  of 
work.  The  most  pitiable  object  in  the  world  is  the  salaried  man 
in  a  so-called  genteel  occupation,  who  suddenly  finds  himself 
out  of  a  position.  He  and  his  family  have  been  compelled  to 
adopt  standards  of  living  unknown  to  the  wage-worker.  Indeed, 
if  such  people  did  not  keep  up  appearances  they  could  neither 
secure  nor  hold  a  position.    Where  the  individual  is  educated  and 


ETIOLOGY  OF  SOCIAL  DISEASES  IN  GENERAL     119 

refined,  the  suffering  is  greater.  The  workingman  gets  the 
sympathy  of  his  fellows,  often  their  aid;  the  genteel  salaried 
man  gets  sneers  and  shoulder  shrugs.  To  have  been  of  the  pros- 
perous class  and  to  have  fallen  is  the  unpardonable  sin. 

A  very  peculiar  condition  is  confronting  the  salaried  man 
in  these  modern  days.  Gray  hairs  were  once  a  recommendation, 
but  young  blood  and  modern  methods  are  to  the  fore,  and  the 
man  past  middle  life  who  loses  his  position  nowadays  usually 
finds  every  counting-house,  shop,  and  office  closed  to  him.  The 
commercial  traveller  of  forty-five  or  fifty  out  of  a  position  is 
counted  with  the  "  has  beens,"  and  is  fortunate  if  he  gets  the 
opportunity  of  earning  enough  to  keep  body  and  soul  together. 

THE   RACE   PROBLEM 

The  race  problem  in  America  requires  especial  considera- 
tion, not  only  because  of  its  general  bearing  on  vice  and  crime, 
but  also  because  of  its  intimate  relation  to  the  economic  phase  of 
social  disease.  The  special  relations  of  the  race  problem  to  sexual 
crimes  will  be  discussed  in  a  subsequent  chapter. 

The  negro  problem  is  a  reality,  not  a  sociologic  bugaboo.  It 
should  be  approached  with  as  little  sentiment  and  prejudice  as  a 
diseased  liver  on  the  post-mortem  table.  It  is  a  cancer  on  the 
fair  face  of  America.  That  the  negro  has  been  a  prime  factor 
in  the  criminality  of  America  since  the  war  is  admitted  by  every 
observing  citizen  of  this  country ;  that  it  has  a  distinctly  local 
bearing,  by  virtue  of  the  large  number  of  negroes  in  the  South, 
is  self-evident ;  that  it  will  be  one  of  the  determining  factors  in 
the  evolution  of  the  distinctive  American  criminal  type  of  the 
future  is  almost  inevitable.  The  statistics  of  negro  criminality 
are  sufficient  alone  to  indicate  the  formidable  proportions  of  the 
race  problem.    Edelmann  says  :  ^° 

"  There  are  in  this  country  866  criminals  to  every  million  of  white 
inhabitants,  and  2974  criminals  to  every  million  of  negro  inhabitants.  The 
percentage  of  negro  arrests  in  the  Southern  cities  is  about  sixty  per  cent. 

"The  Negro  as  a  Criminal,  Medical  News,  January  31,  1903. 


I20  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

In  Washington,  D.  C,  with  a  population  of  277,782  in  1901,  26,062  arrests 
were  made ;  of  these  12,582  were  from  the  white  population  of  189,457, 
and  13,780  from  the  colored  population  of  88,325.  Montgomery,  Alabama, 
with  a  population  of  30,346,  made  2687  arrests  in  1901,  of  which  1793 
were  from  a  colored  population  of  12,000,  and  894  from  a  white  popula- 
tion of  18,000.  Birmingham,  Alabama,  with  a  population  of  38,415,  made, 
in  1901,  10,479  arrests,  of  which  4030  were  white  and  6600  colored.  The 
city  of  Louisville  has  a  population  of  205,000,  of  whom  57,000  are  negroes. 
In  1901  there  were  7958  arrests,  and  of  this  number  4313  were  negroes. 
In  Nashville,  with  a  population  of  about  63,000  whites  and  37,000  negroes, 
there  were,  in  1901,  9837  arrests,  of  which  6081  were  negroes.  In  Atlanta, 
with  a  population  of  65,000  whites  and  38,000  negroes,  there  were  17,286 
arrests,  5784  whites  and  11,502  negroes.  In  Jacksonville,  Florida,  with  a 
population  of  28,429,  there  were,  in  1899,  3683  arrests,  of  which  976  were 
whites  and  1919  negroes." 

Professor  Starr,  of  Chicago  University,  claims  that  in  the 
State  of  Pennsylvania,  where  there  is  little  opportunity  to  assert 
that  the  courts  are  prejudiced  against  the  colored  criminal,  the 
negro  furnishes  sixteen  per  cent,  of  the  male  and  thirty-four  per 
cent,  of  the  female  prisoners,  though  he  forms  only  two  per  cent, 
of  the  population.  In  Chicago,  which  is  said  to  be  the  "  negro 
heaven,"  he  furnishes  ten  per  cent,  of  the  arrests,  though  he 
forms  only  one  and  one-third  per  cent,  of  the  population. 

Dubois,"  while  admitting  the  large  proportion  of  criminality 
among  the  negro  population  of  the  South,  ascribes  their  relative 
moral  deficiencies  to  the  following  factors : 

1.  Economic  conditions  which  in  certain  localities  make  the 
negro's  freedom  a  mockery,  and  what  is  practically  peonage. 

2.  Rebellion  of  the  negroes  against  restricted  rights  and 
privileges,  and  unjust  discrimination  against  them  in  the  courts. 

3.  The  malign  influence  of  avaricious  whites,  the  sons  of 
"  poor  whites,"  "  unscrupulous  Jews,  and  Yankees,"  who  have 
found  the  negro  a  ready  victim  to  their  desire  for  wealth  at  the 
expense  of  negro  labor. 

4.  The  "  crop  lien"  system,  to  which  the  ignorant  negro  falls 
a  ready  victim. 

"  The  Souls  of  Black  Folk,  W.  E.  DuBois. 


ETIOLOGY  OF  SOCIAL  DISEASES  IN  GENERAL     121 

5.  A  police  system  that  at  its  inception  was  designed  to  con- 
trol slaves,  and  which,  since  the  war,  has  discriminated  against 
the  negroes  as  a  class. 

6.  The  training  of  young  negro  boys  to  crime  by  putting  them 
in  chain-gangs  with  adult  offenders. 

7.  An  inadequate  public  school  system  for  negroes. 

Most  of  the  responsibility  for  the  degeneracy  and  crime  of  the 
Southern  negro  lies  at  the  door  of  the  National  government.  It 
has  handled  the  blacks  just  about  as  intelligently  and  honestly  as 
it  has  the  Indian.  If  the  dominant  political  parties  had  paid  more 
attention  to  the  industrial,  moral,  and  physical  training  of  the 
negroes,  who  were  suddenly  thrown  upon  their  own  resources 
and  responsibility  after  the  war,  and  less  to  the  cultivation  and 
harvesting  of  their  votes,  it  would  have  been  far  better  for  the 
South. 

Few,  indeed,  of  the  people  of  the  North  fully  appreciate  the 
terrible  burden  imposed  upon  the  South  by  the  liberation  of  the 
slaves.  Slavery  was  a  fearful  wrong,  but  it  was  a  national 
wrong,  and  it  was  a  crime  to  throw  the  burden  of  an  evil  that 
was  originally  legalized,  fostered,  encouraged  and  taken  ad- 
vantage of  by  practically  the  entire  country  upon  the  section  to 
which  it  was  finally  confined.  The  negro  was  practically  turned 
loose  to  seek  his  own  salvation,  and,  aside  from  the  self-interest 
of  carpet-bag  politicians  and  the  warm  interest  of  the  Republican 
party  in  his  vote,  little  was  done  by  the  government  to  ameliorate 
his  condition  or  improve  his  intellectual  and  physical  status. 
The  history  of  the  Freedman's  Bureau  is  a  history  of  a  crime. 
The  burden  imposed  upon  the  South  was  greater  on  account  of 
the  impoverishment  and  demoralization  of  the  whites  by  the  war. 

Whether  the  South  would  have  adjusted  its  relations  to  the 
blacks  more  harmoniously  and  satisfactorily  had  it  not  been  for 
the  handicap  of  negro  suffrage  is  an  open  question,  but  this  much 
is  certain:  Race  prejudice,  as  distinguished  from  individual 
prejudice,  was  born  on  the  day  the  first  ignorant  negro  vote  was 
cast. 

What  has  been  done  since  the  war  that  has  been  of  any  prac- 
tical value  to  the  negro  and  to  Southern  society  has  been  due 


122  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

chiefly  to  individual  philanthropy,  on  the  one  hand,  and  to  the 
efforts  of  the  South  to  improve  the  condition  of  the  blacks  in 
its  own  defence,  on  the  other.  The  government  should  bow  its 
head  in  shame  before  the  heroic  Yankee  school-ma'am  and  the 
more  intelligent  and  philanthropic  of  the  Southerners. 

A  very  important  point  for  consideration  in  the  study  of  the 
relation  of  the  race  problem  to  crime  is  the  fact  that  the  negro, 
like  all  other  primitive  peoples,  is  the  product  of  a  relatively 
simple  and  somewhat  communistic  social  system,  which  of  neces- 
sity imparts  to  him  very  crude  ideas  of  property  rights. 

The  natural  shiftlessness  of  the  negro,  when  left  to  himself, 
is  simply  a  reversion  to  the  primitive  type  illustrated  by  the 
native  African,  who  is  content  with  a  breech-clout,  a  plentiful 
supply  of  grease  for  his  glossy  hide,  and  multitudinous  wives  to 
minister  to  his  various  appetites.  There  is  but  a  short  span 
between  the  primitive  African  and  his  American  descendants. 
How  much  of  inhibitory  faculties  should  be  expected  to  develop 
within  so  short  a  time  in  a  race  primarily  so  barbarous?  Is  the 
negro  really  as  antisocial  as  we  ought  to  expect  him  to  be  ? 

The  dire  immediate  results  of  throwing  a  primitive  race,  pre- 
viously held  in  bondage,  abruptly  into  a  civilized  social  system  is 
shown  by  contrasting  the  record  of  the  Southern  with  that  of  the 
New  York  negroes.  In  New  York  blacks  owning  a  certain 
amount  of  property  had  been  allowed  to  vote  for  at  least  forty 
years  prior  to  the  war.  They  had  gradually  evolved  into  a  phase 
of  theoretic  equality  of  citizenship,  that  led  them  to  estimate  their 
social  status  by  the  highest  standard  possible  to  their  race.  Such 
a  condition  of  things  necessarily  imposed  inhibitions  upon  them. 
The  negro,  under  these  circumstances,  could  not  consider  himself 
the  victim  of  oppressive  laws  formulated  by  the  whites,  for  his 
own  race,  for  several  decades,  had  participated  in  law-making. 
Law,  therefore,  with  such  negjoes,  was  to  be  respected  rather 
than  ignored.  The  reverse  was  true  in  the  South,  where  the 
blacks  passed  with  one  bound  from  serfdom,  in  which  there  was 
no  stimulus  of  independent  thought,  to  theoretic  equality  and 
often  an  assumption  of  superiority.  The  old  adage,  "  If  you  put 
a  beggar  a-horseback  he  rides  to  the  devil,"  would  apply  very 


ETIOLOGY  OF  SOCIAL  DISEASES  IN  GENERAL    123 

accurately  to  many  of  the  negroes  thus  suddenly  thrown  upon 
their  own  responsibility. 

The  delusion  of  "  forty  acres  and  a  mule"  very  soon  destroyed 
the  compulsory  thrift  characteristic  of  the  black  in  slavery.  He 
considered  himself  the  foster  child  of  the  party  that  freed  him. 
Slavery  had  merely  bottled  up  the  primitive  instincts  of  the  race ; 
it  had  not  destroyed  them.  All  there  was  of  thrift  and  stability 
in  his  character  had  been  impressed  upon  him  in  a  more  or  less 
arbitrary  manner  by  his  owners.  It  was  not  the  product  of  that 
evolution  which  characterized  the  negroes  of  New  York  City, 
for  example,  who  had  in  general  been  exposed  to  an  environment 
favorable  to  their  social  evolution. 

The  influences  of  carpet-bag  government,  as  depicted  by 
Pike,^^  were  a  very  powerful  factor  in  destroying  negro  respect 
for  law  and  order  in  the  South.  The  fallacious  and  pernicious 
teaching  of  the  carpet-bagger  gave  the  degraded  black  an  ex- 
aggerated estimate  of  his  own  personal  importance,  based  upon 
the  market  value  of  his  vote.  It  also  imparted  to  him  the  idea 
that  behind  him,  as  he  went  to  the  polls,  stood  an  army  of  Re- 
publican soldiers  with  bayonets  fixed.  Such  influences  have  done 
much  to  increase  the  insolence  and  criminality  of  the  lower-class 
blacks  in  the  South.  The  Northern  black  has  necessarily  been 
surrounded  by  more  inhibitory  influences  than  he  of  the  South. 
The  lower  classes  of  the  Northern  whites,  with  whom  the 
Northern  black  has  most  frequently  been  brought  in  contact,  have 
been  better  situated  as  regards  opportunities  for  honest  industry 
than  the  "  poor  white"  of  the  South.  The  Northern  white  is,  by 
virtue  of  the  climate,  more  energetic  than  the  Southern  white, 
and  this  necessarily  has  an  influence  for  good  upon  the  negro. 
The  North  has  been  more  prosperous,  and  consequently  his  aver- 
age opportunities  for  obtaining  a  comfortable  subsistence  have 
been  better  than  in  the  South.  The  Northern  black  has  not  been 
so  much  subjected  to  the  mass  influence  of  his  own  race, — i.e., 
he  has  been  more  individualistic  than  in  the  South,  where  the 
negfro  is  segregated  in  large  numbers.    The  mass  influence  in  the 

"A  Prostrate  State. 


124  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

case  of  the  Northern  negro  comes  from  the  whites.  In  order 
that  civiHzation  shall  have  a  fair  chance  to  influence  the  negro, 
he  must  have  less  opportunity  for  segregation  than  the  South 
provides. 

The  quality  and  quantity  of  food  obtained  by  the  Southern 
black  since  the  war,  as  compared  with  that  which  he  obtained 
before  the  great  struggle,  have  been  a  factor  in  his  degeneracy ; 
he  has  missed  his  "  hog  and  hominy."  I  do  not  think,  however, 
that  dietetics  have  had  so  important  a  bearing  upon  the  question 
under  consideration  as  the  lack  of  systematic  occupation  and  the 
forced  assumption  of  responsibilities  for  which  he  was  unfit  by 
nature  and  training,  to  say  nothing  of  the  acquirement  of  vices 
and  profligate  indulgences  for  which  he  had  no  opportunities  in 
his  native  wilds,  and  relatively  few  opportunities  while  in  bond- 
age, and  for  which,  while  in  slavery,  he  was  held  directly  respon- 
sible to  those  whose  interest  it  was  to  keep  him  in  the  best  pos- 
sible condition,  morally  and  physically.  As  slaves,  the  negroes 
were  simply  goods  and  chattels.  Independence  of  thought  and 
action  was  with  them  more  theoretic  than  real,  and  had  very  little 
bearing  upon  their  relations  with  the  whites.  They  were  accus- 
tomed to  obey  without  question  the  dictates  of  their  owners.  Their 
environment  was  narrowing;  their  conditions  for  development 
of  appreciation  of  their  relation  to  the  body  social  were  peculiar ; 
their  thinking  was  done  for  them  by  others ;  they  constituted  a 
primitive  system  within  a  higher  one.  The  necessity  for  inde- 
pendent thought  and  action  did  not  exist  among  them  as  it  did 
among  the  whites.  Attachment  to  the  families  of  their  masters 
and  a  general  sense  of  obligation  to  the  latter  for  their  sustenance 
prevailed.  Privation  and  want,  those  potent  causes  of  degen- 
eracy, were  unknown  among  them.  Personal  physical  responsi- 
bility for  crimes  and  misdeeds  was  a  prominent  factor  of  their 
daily  lives.  Corporeal  punishment  was  more  awesome  to  them  at 
that  time  than  is  the  fear  of  the  bullet  or  the  rope  to-day.  Various 
inhibitory  influences  of  plantation  life  were  potent.  Mass  in- 
fluence at  that  time  resulted  in  something  akin  to  esprit  de  corps. 
The  advantage  of  good  behavior — indeed,  its  absolute  necessity — 
was  a  dominant  influence  in  each  little  negro  community. 


ETIOLOGY  OF  SOCIAL  DISEASES  IN  GENERAL   125 

With  political  turmoil,  commercial  confusion,  and  social  dis- 
integration surrounding  him,  is  it  surprising  that  the  negro, 
thrown  upon  his  own  resources,  should  have  developed  highly 
criminal  tendencies  ?  What  wonder  that  the  attempt  to  material- 
ize the  chimerical  dream  of  equality  between  the  whites,  with 
many  centuries  of  civilization  behind  them,  and  the  blacks,  who 
were  but  a  few  removes  from  the  cannibal,  should  have  been  pro- 
ductive of  dire  results?  Loyalty  to  the  master,  respect  for  the 
mistress,  and  affection  for  the  children  of  those  who  once  cared 
for  him,  melted  away  like  dew  before  the  sun  under  the  fortuitous 
circumstances  in  which  the  negro  was  suddenly  placed. 

The  attempt  of  the  Southern  black  to  adapt  himself  to  his  new 
surroundings  practically  began  in  this  country  with  the  close  of 
our  Civil  War.  Prior  to  that  time  he  had  no  opportunity  of 
demonstrating  whether  or  not  he  could  adapt  himself  to  his 
social  surroundings.  Slow  adaptation  to  environment  is,  of 
course,  by  no  means  confined  to  the  black  race.  Some  other  alien 
races  have  been  political,  social,  moral,  and  commercial  misfits  in 
this  country.  The  Chinaman  will  never  make  a  good  citizen. 
Fortunately,  however,  his  natural  instincts  do  not  partake  so 
much  of  the  primitive  animal  type  as  do  those  of  the  negro,  for 
the  Chinaman  of  to-day  is  the  product  of  a  comparatively  high 
grade  of  civilization,  or  semi-civilization,  which  is  essentially 
ethical,  has  prevailed  for  many  centuries,  and  has  developed  cer- 
tain inhibitions  upon  the  purely  animal  propensities.  The  artistic 
talent  of  the  Chinese  is  in  itself  an  evidence  in  favor  of  this 
argument,  for  pari  passu  with  the  development  of  the  artistic 
sense  development  of  the  higher  inhibitory  faculties  occurs.  The 
industry  of  the  Chinaman  in  his  native  land,  to  say  nothing 
of  what  is  exemplified  in  his  relations  to  our  community  when  he 
settles  among  us,  is  another  important  factor. 

The  question  of  cross-breeding  of  white  and  black,  like 
Banquo's  ghost,  is  one  that  will  not  down.  Legislate  and  moral- 
ize as  we  may,  we  can  never  erect  barriers  that  will  confine  the 
stream  of  black  blood  to  its  own  banks  and  channels.  So  long  as 
human  morals  and  human  passions  are  what  they  are. — and  we 
cannot  hope  ever  to  completely  subvert  them  to  social  altruism.— 


126  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

the  black  and  white  streams  will  intermingle.  It  is  not  possible 
that  a  distinctly  black  race,  comprising  millions,  can  survive  in 
the  midst  of  a  larger  community  of  whites.  There  are  two 
million  mixed  bloods  now ;  what  will  the  next  century  show  ? 
It  is  not  possible  for  a  stream  of  white  blood  to  flow  on  year  in 
and  year  out,  side  by  side  with  a  stream  of  black  blood — or, 
rather,  surrounding  the  latter  on  all  sides — without  becoming 
contaminated  by  it.  Struggle  as  we  may,  a  gradual  blending  of 
the  two  streams  is  inevitable.  Even  were  it  possible  to  prevent 
this,  it  would  still  be  only  a  question  of  time  when  the  negro  race 
would  insist  on  the  practical  application  of  those  rights  which  are 
now  almost  theoretic.  The  Fifteenth  Amendment,  which  is  now 
a  farce,  or,  at  best,  impotent,  is  then  likely  to  be  a  serious  bone  of 
contention.  Negro  demagogues  are  likely  to  arise  sooner  or  later, 
and  the  long-talked-of  "race  war"  become  a  reality. 

An  unfortunate  and  unavoidable  feature  of  miscegenation 
laws  is  that  they  infringe  on  personal  rights  and  conflict  with  the 
natural  law  of  sexual  selection.  Such  laws  abrogate  the  con- 
stitutional rights  of  both  blacks  and  whites  who  purblindly  desire 
to  intermarry.  The  right  to  the  pursuit  of  happiness  revolves 
largely  around  sexual  selection.  Miscegenation  may  be  an  un- 
mixed evil,  but  there  are  bound  to  be  certain  individuals,  both 
white  and  black,  who,  like  certain  anarchical  fanatics,  can  under- 
stand only  the  strict  letter  of  the  Constitution,  and  are  blind  to 
the  advantages  of  any  altruistic  legislation  that  conflicts  with  it. 
Not  only  are  they  blind,  but  rebellious. 

There  can  be  no  question  that  extensive  cross-breeding  of 
blacks  and  whites  would  bring  social  disaster  in  its  train  unless 
there  were  a  change  in  our  present  attitude  towards  the  negro. 
Still  greater  disaster  would,  however,  accrue  to  the  negro  him- 
self, for  unrestricted  mingling  of  white  and  black  blood  would 
mean  for  him  race  extinction.  The  price  he  pays  for  an  ad- 
mixture of  Caucasian  blood  is  degeneracy  of  the  deadliest  type. 
Infertility  and  increased  susceptibility  to  disease  are  slow  but 
sure  exterminators  of  a  race.  Possibly  herein  lies  the  final  solu- 
tion of  the  race  problem. 

The  attitude  of  this  country  towards  the  negro  is  supremely 


ETIOLOGY  OF  SOCIAL  DISEASES  IN  GENERAL     127 

ridiculous,  however  the  race  problem  may  be  regarded.  He 
occupies  a  plane  of  theoretic  equality  of  citizenship,  yet  every- 
body knows  there  is  no  equality.  Booker  T.  Washington,  a  man 
whose  attributes  make  him  worthy  of  association  with  even  the 
most  intellectual  among  white  men,  dines  with  President  Roose- 
velt, and  the  latter  is  immediately  put  upon  the  rack  of  obloquy 
and  criticism  by  the  entire  South,  and,  to  a  certain  extent,  by  the 
North.  In  Europe — indeed,  in  every  country  save  the  United 
States — there  is  no  color  line.  In  the  Northern  States  the  color 
line  is  definite  enough,  while  in  the  South  it  is  practically  a 
"  dead  line."  The  social,  political,  moral,  legal,  and  intellectual 
anomalies  involved  in  the  American  attitude  towards  the  negro 
are  past  understanding.  Whether  expedient  or  not,  they  are  still 
anomalies. 

It  might  be  a  selfish  attitude,  but  one  would  be  almost  justified 
in  feeling  grateful  for  the  fact  that  the  culmination  of  the 
terrible  race  problem  must  be  faced  by  another  generation  than 
ours, — "  After  us  the  deluge ;"  that  it  must  be  faced  sooner  or 
later  is  inevitable,  unless  greater  intelligence  is  soon  brought  to 
bear  upon  its  solution  than  has  thus  far  been  exhibited,  and  a 
radical  change  in  the  social,  educational,  political,  and  moral 
management  of  the  negro  instituted.  If  the  black  and  white 
streams  are  to  continue  as  theoretic  organic  blood  entities  flow- 
ing side  by  side  in  the  same  social  system,  the  sooner  the  im- 
possibility of  any  sort  of  equality  between  the  races  is  under- 
stood, the  better.  If  the  races  are  not  to  blend,  the  white  race 
must  and  will  dominate,  though  the  heavens  fall. 

The  fear  of  social  equality  of  black  and  white  is  a  bogey  man. 
The  negro  does  not  want  it,  nor  could  it  be  given  to  him  as  a 
race  if  we  would.  He  could  not  get  social  equality  any  more  than 
a  hod-carrier  could  break  into  New  York's  "'  Four  Hundred." 
The  same  principle  governs  in  each  case.  Social  coteries  and 
individuals  alike  will  always  draw  their  own  social  lines,  irre- 
spective of  race,  occupation,  or  color. 

Let  political  quacks  and  sentimental  sociologists  theorize  as 
they  may,  the  curse  that  the  importation  of  the  blacks  inflicted 
upon  America  will  pass  on  to  generations  yet  unborn.      Our 


128  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

country  has  not  yet  settled  its  account  with  slavery.  It  has  an 
account  yet  to  adjust  that  shall  make  the  enormous  cost  of  the 
Civil  War  in  blood  and  money  seem  a  trifling  thing. 

If  given  a  fair  chance,  manual  training  and  industrial  schools 
are  destined  to  accomplish  wonders  in  the  moral  training  of  the 
negro.  Habits  of  industry  and  thrift,  associated  with  the 
physique  that  proper  physical  exercise  develops,  will  do  more  for 
his  morals  than  any  amount  of  preaching.  The  so-called  higher 
education  I  believe  to  be  a  failure  even  with  the  lower  class  of 
whites ;  if  this  be  correct,  how  much  can  be  expected  of  it  in  the 
training  of  the  blacks  ?  This  much  is  certain,  if  the  negro  is  to 
be  improved  the  work  should  be  begun  at  the  bottom.  As  a  race, 
he  may  never  become  adapted  to  the  higher  educational  ideal,  but 
if  he  does,  it  must  be  by  a  gradual  evolution,  and  not  by  a  single 
mighty  bound.  Individual  examples  of  high  mental  attainments 
exist,  it  is  true,  but  they  simply  serve  to  show  the  possibilities  of 
the  race,  and  do  not  controvert  the  position  I  have  taken.  They 
do  not  prove  a  high  average  of  intellectual  capacity  among  the 
blacks,  any  more  than  Shakespeare  proved  that  any  Englishman 
could  be  a  Shakespeare.  A  race  that  can  produce  a  Booker  T. 
Washington,  a  Du  Bois,  or  a  Paul  Lawrence  Dunbar  has  possi- 
bilities, but  it  will  be  many,  many  years  before  such  men  can  be 
taken  as  criteria  of  the  intellectuality  of  the  negro.  The  occur- 
rence of  such  men  is  almost  incomprehensible.  Is  their  strain 
of  white  blood  responsible?  The  great  men  of  the  white  race 
have  centuries  of  civilization  behind  them ;  they  are  the  focal 
point  of  ages  of  intellectual  culture.  Behind  the  great  black 
men  stands  a  tribe  of  West  Coast  Africans. 

With  the  rise  of  average  negro  intelligence  will  come  ambi- 
tion. He  will  learn  both  good  and  bad  political  ambition  and 
methods  from  the  whites.  If  we  do  not  take  away  from  him  the 
rights  granted  by  the  Constitution,  by  repealing  such  of  it  as 
favors  his  race,  he  will  one  day  be  strong  enough  to  demand  that 
those  rights  be  made  real,  not  visionary  paper  rights.  If  we  do 
legally  take  away  his  constitutional  rights,  his  intelligence,  am- 
bition, and  consciousness  of  power  will  one  dav-  inspire  him  to 
demand  that  they  be  restored  and  carried  out  in  practice. 


ETIOLOGY  OF  SOCIAL  DISEASES  IN  GENERAL     129 

Will  the  negro  lack  leaders  ?  Not  unless  the  births  of  Tous- 
saint  L'Overture,  Alexandre  Dumas,  Frederick  Douglas,  Booker 
T.  Washington,  and  E.  B.  Du  Bois  were  freaks  of  nature,  bio- 
logic sports,  comets  in  the  sky  of  organic  development  that  will 
never  be  repeated  in  the  history  of  the  race. 

Mr.  Booker  T.  Washington  advises  the  negro  to  put  away 
political  ambition,  "  at  least  for  the  present,"  ^^  and  devote  his 
energies  to  self -improvement,  moral  training,  education,  and  the 
acquirement  of  wealth  and  property.  Astute  politician,  Mr. 
Washington ;  with  the  acquirement  of  the  things  he  demands  and 
their  satellite,  ambition,  all  that  is  necessary  is  leaders  and  num- 
bers to  swell  the  tide,  and  nothing  short  of  a  war  of  extermina- 
tion can  stop  the  negro  from  obtaining  the  rights  of  man  as  the 
American  citizen  understands  them,  in  theory  if  not  in  applica- 
tion. Professor  Du  Bois  takes  issue  with  Mr.  Washington." 
Clever  though  he  is,  he  has  not  the  latter's  far-seeing  vision.  To 
learn  to  labor  and  to  wait  is  the  sure  road  to  political  rights.  In- 
dustrial schools  are  the  kindergartens  in  which  the  primitive 
brain  of  the  negro  will  begin  its  development.  Training  the 
hand  involves  stimulus  of  brain-growth. 

EVILS   OF   IMMIGRATION 

Unrestricted  and  unregulated  immigration  is  a  factor  in  the 
social  pathology  of  America  that  has  been  noted  by  sociologists, 
but  well-nigh  ignored  by  our  legislators.  The  United  States, 
even  in  the  days  when  it  was  the  greatest  slave  mart  in  the  world, 
was  posing  as  a  refuge  for  people  of  other  lands  who  were  dis- 
satisfied with  their  own  country,  and  also  for  those  with  whom 
their  native  country  was  dissatisfied.  For  years  and  years  the 
degenerate  flotsam  and  jetsam  of  Europe  have  entered  our 
country  in  a  continuous  stream.  Paupers,  inebriates,  insane. 
beggars,  and  known  criminals  have  been  deposited  upon  our 
shores,  until  this  country  has  become  practically  a  dumping- 
ground  for  the  sweepings  of  Europe.    There  existed  in  England 

"  Italics  mine. — G.  F.  L. 
"  The  Souls  of  Black  Folk. 


I30  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

for  many  years  a  society  the  special  business  of  which  was  the 
deportation  of  criminals,  and  tough  ones  at  that,  to  America. 

The  immigration  question  is  in  this  country  one  of  the  most 
vital  issues  of  the  day.  The  instance  has  been  known,  and  quite 
recently,  that  nearly  ten  thousand  immigrants  were  landed  in  one 
day  at  Castle  Garden  alone,  to  say  nothing  of  other  ports  of  entry. 
Were  it  established  that  all  of  these  people  become  respectable, 
law-abiding,  and  producing  elements  in  American  society,  they 
would  certainly  be  a  very  valuable  addition  to  our  population. 
There  is,  however,  something  suggestive  in  the  fact  that,  although 
foreign-born  citizens  constitute  but  one-eighth  of  the  total  popula- 
tion of  the  country,  they  furnish  one-third  of  our  criminals,  one- 
third  of  our  paupers,  and  one-third  of  our  insane.  In  short,  the 
character  of  our  immigrants  is  so  polluted  by  the  wholesale  ex- 
portation by  the  Old  World  of  the  insane,  criminal,  and  pauper 
class  that  every  one  thousand  immigrants  furnishes  twenty  per 
cent,  more  of  the  inmates  of  our  jails,  asylums,  and  almshouses 
than  the  same  number  of  American-born. 

Strong  says, "  "  The  hoodlums  and  roughs  of  our  cities  are 
most  of  them  foreign-born,  or  American-born  of  foreign  parent- 
age. Of  the  six  hundred  and  eighty  discharged  convicts  apply- 
ing for  aid  to  the  New  York  Prison  Association,  in  1882,  there 
were  two  hundred  and  thirty-eight  foreign-born,  and  two  hun- 
dred and  ninety-eight  of  foreign  parentage." 

Some  years  ago  the  statistics  of  the  Rhode  Island  workhouse 
showed,  in  over  six  thousand  criminals,  seventy-six  per  cent,  of 
foreign  parentage.  During  one  year  the  inmates  of  the  Massa- 
chusetts Reformatory  for  Women  showed  eighty-one  per  cent,  of 
foreign  parentage.  In  1880  the  foreign-born  comprised  only 
thirteen  per  cent,  of  the  entire  population,  yet  furnished  nineteen 
per  cent,  of  our  convicts  and  forty-three  per  cent,  of  the  inmates 
of  our  workhouses  and  houses  of  correction. 

The  tide  of  immigration  is  steadily  increasing.  The  total 
number  of  immigrants  arriving  at  the  port  of  New  York  alone  in 
1902  was  545,751.    Adding  about  two  hundred  thousand  to  this 

"  Our  Country,  Josiah  Strong. 


ETIOLOGY  OF  SOCIAL  DISEASES  IN  GENERAL     131 

figure  gives  the  total  for  the  country,  which  is  about  one  hundred 
thousand  greater  than  the  total  for  the  fiscal  year  ending  June  30, 
1902,  and  is  exceeded  only  once  in  the  record  of  fiscal  years, — 
viz.,  the  twelve  months  ending  June  30,  1892,  when  the  immi- 
grants numbered  788,992.  There  are  but  four  other  fiscal  years 
in  which  the  totals  go  beyond  600,000, — namely,  1881,  669,431 ; 
1883,  602,322;    1892,  623,084;    1902,  648,743. 

With  this  steady  increase  the  same  racial  preponderance  is 
noted  as  during  the  last  five  or  six  years.  The  immigration  from 
Italy,  which  was  178,372  for  the  twelve  months  ending  June  30, 
was  174,403  for  the  ten  months  ending  with  October,  1902. 
Austria-Hungary  and  Russia  also  kept  up  their  proportions. 
The  Germans,  Scandinavians,  and  Irish  are  all  increasing.  A 
new  feature  was  afforded  by  the  comparatively  large  immigra- 
tion of  Japanese,  which  gave  a  total  of  14,270  for  the  last  fiscal 
year.  The  last  few  months  shows  the  Japanese  invasion  to  be 
on  the  increase. 

The  difficulty  of  adaptation  of  much  of  the  foreign-born 
population  to  their  new  and  strange  environment  in  America  has 
much  to  do  with  the  large  proportion  of  criminals  and  paupers 
that  they  furnish.  The  difficulty  of  finding  lucrative  employment 
immediately  on  landing  has  also  its  influence.  The  steamship 
companies  oflFer  in  Europe  great  inducements  to  prospective  emi- 
grants, and  often  lead  them  to  believe  that  America  is  a  land  of 
milk  and  honey,  where  a  living,  and  better,  is  to  be  had  for  the  ask- 
ing. After  taking  his  last  dollar  for  transportation,  the  companies 
land  the  foreigner  at  the  port  of  entry  to  get  along  as  best  he  may. 
Having  at  one  time  served  as  surgeon  to  the  New  York  Immigra- 
tion Commission,  I  speak  with  some  positiveness  on  this  point. 

Our  immigration  laws  have  improved  of  late  years,  but  they 
are  not  yet  strict  enough.  "  America  for  Americans"  would  not 
be  a  bad  principle  to  follow  for  ten  years  or  so.  A  special  tax  on 
immigrants  would  be  an  excellent  thing  for  this  country,  which 
presents  the  anomaly  of  letting  in  immigration  "  riff-raff"  free, 
and  laying  a  heavy  tax  on  art  productions.  A  degenerate  may 
enter  duty  free,  but  a  Raphael's  Madonna  was  taxed  one  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars. 


132  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

On  several  occasions  desperate  attempts  have  been  made  to 
restrict  immigration,  and,  as  I  have  said,  conditions  are  rather 
better  than  formerly,  yet  the  fact  remains  that  the  off-scourings 
of  Europe — dirty,  illiterate,  and  absolutely  unassimilable — may 
still  land  upon  our  shores.  The  Lodge  bill,  introduced  in  the 
United  States  Senate  about  nine  years  ago,  was  a  step  in  the 
right  direction,  but  failed  to  become  a  law.  The  bill  provided  that 
persons  over  sixteen  years  of  age  who  could  not  read  English, 
or  some  other  language,  should  be  barred,  except  that  a  qualified 
person  might  bring  in  or  send  for  his  illiterate  parents,  grand- 
parents, wife,  or  minor  children,  if  he  were  able  to  support  them. 
This  bill  was  passed,  but  it  was  vetoed  by  President  Cleveland 
for  several  reasons,  one  of  which  was  that  the  educational  test 
was  misleading.  "  What  we  should  demand,"  he  argued,  "  is 
physical  and  moral  soundness  and  a  willingness  and  ability  to 
work,  and  if  any  particular  element  of  our  illiterate  immigration 
is  to  be  feared  for  other  causes  than  illiteracy,  these  causes  should 
be  dealt  with  directly,  instead  of  making  illiteracy  the  pretext  for 
exclusion  to  the  detriment  of  other  illiterate  immigrants  against 
whom  the  real  cause  of  complaint  cannot  be  alleged.  The 
morally  unfit  who  are  educated  are  much  more  to  be  feared  than 
the  honest  and  industrious  illiterates." 

This  represents  the  ideas  of  most  people  who  object  to  restric- 
tion. But  since  the  veto  was  written,  illiterates  have  constituted 
an  enormous  and  unprecedented  percentage  of  a  growing  immi- 
gration. The  close  relation  between  illiteracy  and  crime,  and  the 
menace  to  localities  where  immigration  is  largest,  are  so  evident 
that  it  is  only  a  question  of  time  when  some  educational  test  will 
be  put  in  practice.  The  idea  that  a  stupid,  ignorant  peasant  or  a 
criminal  is  permitted  to  come  to  America  and  be  enrolled  in  five 
years  as  a  citizen,  with  all  the  prerogatives  of  citizenship,  is  not 
comforting  to  many  Americans  and,  sooner  or  later,  revulsion  of 
popular  feeling  will  bring  about  a  radical  change  in  the  national 
attitude  on  the  question  of  immigration.  The  Chinese  exclusion 
act  was  an  excellent  thing,  yet  it  shut  out  a  class  of  persons  much 
less  dangerous  than  many  of  our  Occidental  immigrants.  So 
many  of  the  latter  are  non-producers,  that  they  are  veritable 


ETIOLOGY  OF  SOCIAL  DISEASES  IN  GENERAL     133 

fungi  on  the  American  body  social.  It  is  high  time  to  put  up  the 
bars  and  protect  the  clover. 

The  worst  feature  of  unrestricted  and  unregulated  immigra- 
tion is  the  importation  of  individuals  with  ignorant  and  fanatical 
social  and  political  views.  The  scum  of  Europe  has  a  revolu- 
tionary heredity  that  bodes  ill  for  the  community  that  harbors  it. 
Some  of  the  worst  of  our  disturbing  elements  are  of  European 
origin.  Much  of  our  labor  violence  is  easily  traced  to  this 
source. 

The  suggestion  has  been  made  that  our  government  require 
a  passport  for  record  of  every  immigrant,  containing  a  perfect 
description  of  the  individual,  making  identification  easy.  For- 
eign-born criminals  could  thus  be  identified  as  such,  punished, 
and  after  punishment  their  citizenship  annulled  and  they  deported 
to  their  native  country,  their  return  to  America  being  penalized 
by  life  imprisonment.^® 

THE    EVILS   OF   SPECULATION 

The  wide-spread  tendency  to  speculation  is  a  cause  of  crime 
that  is  not  accorded  the  importance  it  deserves. 

The  man  who  speculates  in  stocks  and  the  man  who  lays  his 
money  upon  roulette  are  alike  impelled  by  the  gambling  instinct 
which  pervades  the  breasts  of  a  majority  of  people.  To  get 
wealth  without  rendering  the  quid  pro  quo  of  labor  or  skill  is  a 
common  human  failing.  It  is  the  principle  that  underlies  the 
speculative  instinct  and  accounts  for  its  great  fascination.  The 
shrewd  stock  and  grain  jobber  takes  advantage  of  this  human 
weakness  for  his  own  ends.  The  results  of  gambling,  so  far  as 
inciting  to  crime  is  concerned,  are  only  too  familiar.  The  suicide 
who  has  lost  his  thousands  at  Monte  Carlo,  the  lad  who  steals  in 
order  that  he  may  shoot  craps  in  the  neighboring  alley,  and  the 
defalcating  clerk  or  cashier  who  recoups  his  losses  at  the  gam- 
bling-table or  racing-book  from  his  employer's  strong  box  are  of 
the  same  kidney.     And  the  evil  is  far-reaching;    the  woman 


"  Crime  and  the  Policeman,  Charles  E.  Felton,  Transactions  National 
Prison  Association,  1901, 


134  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

whose  home  is  wrecked  by  the  gambHng  instinct  of  father  or 
husband  has  often  sold  herself  for  bread. 

The  "  Get  money,  honestly  if  you  can,  but  get  money"  prin- 
ciple of  ethics  actuates  many  people  who  never  come  within  the 
pale  of  the  law.  The  man  who  starts  a  scheme  guaranteed  to 
beat  the  sellers  of  racing-pools  or  the  stock  market  always  gets 
hundreds  to  bite  at  his  bare  hook.  They  squeal  terribly  when 
they  are  bitten,  and  society  sometimes  severely  punishes  the 
schemer,  but  the  people  who  invested  in  the  nefarious  scheme 
are  merely  victims  of  their  own  dishonesty.  Wright,  the  no- 
torious English  promoter,  made  money  for  some  persons  and 
robbed  others,  high  up  in  society.  The  innate  dishonesty  of 
many  people  is  shown  by  the  readiness  of  the  "  honest  farmer" 
to  buy  "  green  goods."  He  is  not  averse  to  buying  and  passing 
counterfeit  money  if  he  can  be  made  to  believe  he  has  a  sure 
thing.  The  readiness  with  which  people  invest  in  schemes  for 
fleecing  other  people  is  one  of  the  most  pertinent  illustrations  of 
the  specific  gravity  of  morals.  The  man  who  quietly  announces 
that  a  certain  race  is  to  be  "  sold,"  or  who  taps  a  wire  for  infor- 
mation which  shall  enable  him  to  swindle  the  book-makers,  never 
has  the  slightest  difficulty  in  securing  victims  through  their 
willingness  to  victimize  someone  else.  Some  of  our  mining  stock 
and  oil  promoters  are  the  worst  rascals  who  ever  kept  out  of  jail. 
Their  nefariousness  is  self-evident,  yet  they  enter  our  offices  and 
blithely  propose  to  rob  us  with  impunity. 

The  worst  of  the  gambling  instinct  is  that  even  boys  and 
women  are  attracted  by  various  gambling  enterprises.  The  pit, 
the  faro  bank,  the  stock  exchange,  and  the  racing-booth  are  alike 
tempting  to  the  young  and  to  women. 

The  distinctions  drawn  between  different  varieties  of  gam- 
bling are  unfair  and  illogical.  Gambling  at  cards  or  roulette  is 
no  worse  than  staking  one's  money  upon  the  price  of  wheat  or 
stocks.  Indeed,  the  man  who  plays  poker  or  faro  has  a  better 
chance  for  his  money  than  is  afforded  by  the  stock  and  grain 
exchange,  and  often  has  far  more  honest  people  to  deal  with. 

But  the  hazard  of  the  die  is  attractive,  and  until  everybody 
knows  and  puts  into  practice  the  principle  that  it  is  never  safe  to 


ETIOLOGY  OF  SOCIAL  DISEASES  IN  GENERAL     135 

bet  upon  another  man's  game,  and  that  with  every  one  per  cent, 
of  interest  above  the  legal  rate  promised  on  a  speculative  venture 
the  danger  of  loss  is  compounded,  there  can  be  no  decrease  in 
gambling  and  speculation.  Granting  that  speculation  in  general 
cannot  be  checked,  the  principle  that  one  should  never  risk  money 
that  he  cannot  afford  to  lose  is  a  safe  one  to  follow. 

Business  men  are  compelled  to  be  constantly  on  the  alert  lest 
shortage  of  accounts  may  develop  among  their  employees. 
Surety  companies  know  by  experience  that  the  gambling  of 
salaried  people  is  a  source  of  expense  to  them.  P.  L.  Wickes, 
special  agent  for  the  Fidelity  and  Deposit  Company  of  Mary- 
land, says, — 


"  The  risks  young  men  will  take  to  gamble  are  noticeable.  We  have 
found  that  the  racing  hand-book  system  has  affected  us  materially.  It  is 
easy  to  place  a  bet,  and  when  the  book-makers  come  to  the  clerk  or  the 
employee,  in  whatever  capacity  he  may  be  serving,  he  thinks  only  of  the 
possibility  of  winning  a  large  sum  for  a  small  investment.  He  does  not 
stop  to  think  that  the  other  fellows  are  not  in  business  from  philanthropic 
motives,  and  that  his  chances  for  making  anything  are  so  slim  that  they 
are  hardly  to  be  considered. 

"  Our  business  shows  defalcations  to  be  on  the  increase.  One  fre- 
quently reads  of  a  shortage  that  must  be  made  good  by  a  guaranty 
company,  but  for  every  one  that  falls  under  the  public  eye  there  are 
twelve  of  which  the  public  hears  nothing.  It  was  bad  enough  when  men 
who  wished  to  bet  were  compelled  to  go  to  the  race-tracks,  but  now, 
when  any  one  who  desires  to  risk  his  money  can  step  into  an  office  on 
his  way  to  lunch,  or  have  some  one  telephone  his  bet  to  the  book-maker, 
the  possibilities  of  young  men  getting  into  debt  have  increased  mate- 
rially." 


Another  representative  of  a  bonding  company  states  that  his 
company  has  found  it  necessary  to  make  a  formal  protest  to 
certain  employers  in  the  city  against  the  gambling  the  young  men 
in  their  establishments  are  doing.    He  further  says, — 

"  The  protest  should  have  been  united  in  by  every  bonding  company 
in  the  city,  but,  unfortunately,  we  are  not  combined  into  a  central  asso- 
ciation for  the  protection  of  interests  that  affect  all  equally.     We  have 


136  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

been  forced  to  make  good  several  shortages  caused  through  gambling,  in 
nearly  every  instance  by  the  hand-book  system."  " 

The  minds  of  young  men  are  often  diverted  in  the  direction 
of  speculation  by  the  brilliant  exploits  of  the  occasional  success- 
ful gambler.  Newspaper  accounts  of  daring  speculative  coups 
quite  naturally  excite  a  spirit  of  emulation  in  some  of  the  weaker 
subjects  whose  ambitions  soar  above  the  bounds  of  a  small  salary. 
The  game  looks  easy,  the  opportunity  is  always  at  hand,  and 
before  he  realizes  it  the  young  man  is  involved  in  a  defalcation. 
A  great  wheat  or  cotton  corner  brings  social  disease  in  its  train. 

The  worst  feature  of  the  speculative  craze  is  the  panics  that 
result  from  it  at  regular  intervals.  Nearly  every  large  corpora- 
tion is  bonded,  stocked,  and  watered  to  the  extreme  limit.  When 
a  single  important  link  of  the  stock  chain  snaps,  the  whole  system 
becomes  demoralized.  The  ups  and  downs  of  inflated  Wall  Street 
dominate  the  prosperity  of  the  country.  With  panics  come 
prostitution,  inebriety,  and  crime.  The  reflection  that  it  is  within 
the  power  of  any  one  of  a  dozen  or  more  men  to  precipitate  a 
panic  in  America  is  not  comforting.  That  the  earth  should  quake 
at  the  nod  of  a  great  financier  is  a,  source  of  social  unrest,  not 
crystallized,  it  is  true,  yet  only  too  definite. 

A  spirit  similar  to  the  speculative,  but  more  degraded,  actu- 
ates the  instigators  of  most  malpractice  suits  and  many  of  those 
who  sue  corporations  for  exorbitant  damages.  The  latter  point 
brings  up  the  prostitution  of  expert  testimony  that  is  so  prevalent 
in  our  courts.  Distortion,  perversion,  and  biased  application  of 
facts  by  supposedly  scientific  experts  is,  alas  !  too  common.  The 
medico-legal  expert  is  a  factor  in  the  crime  problem,  in  general, 
that  deserves  attention.  There  are  men  whom  a  fee,  or  even 
newspaper  notoriety,  will  induce  to  testify  to  anything,  even  to 
the  extent  of  defeating  the  ends  of  justice,  on  the  one  hand,  or 
juggling  with  human  life,  on  the  other. 

INSURANCE   FRAUDS 

A  special  factor  in  crime  which  has  often  been  called  to  the 
attention  of  the  public  is  insurance,  both  fire  and  life.     Arson, 

"  Interviews  by  the  Chicago  Tribune. 


ETIOLOGY  OF  SOCIAL  DISEASES  IN  GENERAL     137 

fraudulent  inventories,  fraudulent  medical  examinations,  and 
murder  have  all  been  perpetrated  by  individuals  who  consider  an 
insurance  company  fair  game,  and  have  little  or  no  scruples  to 
overcome.  So  far  as  fraudulent  medical  examinations  are  con- 
cerned, life  insurance  companies  put  a  premium  upon  them.  The 
most  important  feature  of  life  assurance  is  the  medical  examina- 
tion. The  welfare  of  the  company  depends  largely  upon  the  ex- 
aminer's accuracy  and  honesty.  The  agent  receives  a  large  part 
or  all  of  the  first  premium  for  his  part  of  the  transaction,  while 
the  medical  examiner  receives  a  pittance  almost  incompatible  with 
his  self-respect.  Few  men  of  experience  and  skill  can  aflford  to 
enter  the  employ  of  life  insurance  companies.  The  tendency  to 
undervalue  professional  skill  is  wide-spread,  but  nowhere  is  it  so 
ill-advised  as  in  the  matter  of  life  insurance  examinations. 

Campbell  has  written  exhaustively  on  insurance  frauds.^®  He 
discusses  at  length  fraudulent  marine  insurance,  fire  insurance, 
life  insurance,  and  insurance  of  children.  He  asserts  that  in  the 
nature  of  things  the  insurance  contract  is  more  likely  to  be  abused 
than  any  other  contract  known  to  commerce.  In  those  countries 
where  it  is  best  known  and  most  widely  practised,  insurance  has 
led  to  whole  cycles  and  systems  of  crime  and  evil.  Not  only  does 
it  offer  bribes  for  the  commission  of  sins  against  the  law,  but  in 
innumerable  cases  the  bribes  have  been  taken  and  the  crimes  paid 
for  have  been  committed.  "  Though  to  the  mind  of  the  man 
whose  attention  is  occupied  with  his  own  affairs,"  says  Campbell, 
"  there  may  seem  to  be  no  real  relation  between  the  building  of 
unseaworthy  ships,  the  mismanagement  of  friendly  societies,  the 
burning  of  a  town,  and  the  starving  of  a  baby,  all  these  and  count- 
less other  crimes  and  social  evils  are,  in  fact,  due  to  the  same 
cause.  Between  wilful  criminality  and  criminal  carelessness  there 
may  be  a  difference,  but  it  is  mainly  one  of  degree." 

As  a  result  of  a  recent  systematic  swindle  of  life  insurance 
companies  in  New  York,  a  large  number  of  bodies  had  to  be 
exhumed  to  prove  the  fraud.  Bogus  bodies  had  been  palmed  off 
on  at  least  ten  companies. 

"  Insurance  and  Crime,  Alexander  Campbell. 


138  THE   DISEASES   OF   SOCIETY 

The  Philadelphia  wholesale  murderer,  Holmes,  was  an  in- 
surance swindler  on  a  large  scale.  Four  or  more  of  his  victims 
were  insured  and  killed  for  the  insurance.  The  Chicago  con- 
spiracy to  kill,  and  to  defraud  an  insurance  society,  for  which  a 
doctor  is  now  serving  a  term  in  Joliet,  was  a  flagrant  illustration 
of  the  same  sort  of  crime.  The  conspirators  were  clever  enough 
to  cremate  the  corpus  delicti,  and  thus  escape  conviction  for 
murder. 

There  is  a  safe  and  sure  protection  of  life  insurance  com- 
panies against  fraud  if  they  are  willing  to  go  to  a  little  expense 
to  accomplish  it.  Mr.  Charles  E.  Felton  has  suggested  the  meas- 
urement of  every  subject  insured  by  the  Bertillon  method.^®  If 
this  were  adopted,  it  would  be  impossible  to  palm  off  bogus  bodies 
to  secure  insurance  benefits. 

MATRIMONY    AND    CRIME 

The  most  vital  of  human  institutions,  marriage,  has  a  certain 
definite  relation  to  crime.  Statistics  show  that  a  much  larger 
proportion  of  celibates  are  arrested  for  crime,  or  found  as  inmates 
in  our  prisons,  than  of  married  men.  The  records  in  Chicago 
for  a  period  of  ten  years  were  as  follows : 

Total  Arrests.  Married.  Single. 

1901 69,442  21,507  47,935 

1900 70,438  35.620  34,818 

1899 71,349  21,747  49,602 

1898 77,441  25,645  51,796 

1897 83,680  24,608  59,072 

1896 96,847  26,484  70,363 

1895 83,464  23,617  59,847 

1894 88,323  25,207  63,116 

1893 96,976  V  25,731  71,245 

1892 89.833  24,497  65,346 

1891 70,550  19,783  50,767 

Statistics,  then,  would  seem  to  show  that  marriage  is  deter- 
rent of  crime.    The  deterrent  eflfect  of  matrimony,  however,  is  to 

"  Crime  and  the  Policeman,  Transactions  National  Prison  Reform 
Association,  1901. 


ETIOLOGY  OF  SOCIAL  DISEASES  IN  GENERAL     139 

be  estimated  rather  upon  general  principles  than  upon  statistics. 
Investigations  among  criminals  develop  some  queer  things.  For 
instance,  if  statistics  count  for  anything,  the  fact  that  a  great 
majority  of  convicts  have  attended  Sunday-school  or  received 
religious  instruction  of  some  kind  is  not  flattering  to  the  church. 
It  would  be  easy  to  draw  the  fallacious  deduction  that  religious 
instruction  is  a  cause  of  crime. 

The  relative  proportions  in  our  population  of  married  and 
unmarried  men  must  be  taken  into  consideration.  The  statistics 
of  1890  on  this  point  were : 

Total  Males.  Married.  Single.  Widowed.     Divorced.  Unknown. 

32,067,880       11,205,228       19,945,576       815,437       49,101        52,538 

The  proportion  of  single  men  is  thus  seen  to  be  nearly  double 
that  of  married  men.  This  neutralizes  to  a  great  extent  the  two 
to  one  proportion  of  single  to  married  men  brought  before  the  bar 
of  justice.  A  large  proportion  of  criminals  begin  a  life  of  crime 
and  are  arrested,  if  not  convicted,  before  they  are  of  marriageable 
age.  Nearly  all  widowed  and  divorced  prisoners,  and  those  who 
have  deserted  their  families,  answer  "  No,"  when  asked  whether 
they  are  married.  Many  conceal  the  fact  that  they  are  married, 
some  from  delicacy, — not  every  criminal  likes  to  have  his  family 
know  his  record, — some  because  the  existence  of  a  family  is  a  clue 
for  the  police  to  follow  in  locating  and  capturing  criminals.  To 
offset  these  in  a  minor  degree  is  the  occasional  criminal  who 
falsely  claims  a  wife  and  children  for  the  purpose  of  exciting 
sympathy  for  his  unhappy  lot.  In  many  instances  the  prisoner 
lies,  upon  one  side  or  the  other,  on  principle.  He  feels  instinc- 
tively that  the  more  he  lies  to  the  officials  and  confuses  his  record 
the  better  for  him  in  future.  His  lying  is  in  response  to  his 
instinct  of  self-preservation. 

The  proportion  of  recommitments  is  greater  among  young 
criminals,  and  as  care  is  not  always  taken  to  take  recommitments 
into  account,  the  statistics  are  vitiated. 

In  general,  it  may  be  said  that  the  average  celibate  among 
criminals  is  not  a  criminal  because  unmarried,  but  is  unmarried 
because  he  is  a  criminal.     Once  the  boy  or  the  vouth  begins  a 


I40  THE   DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

life  of  crime,  he  soon  acquires  a  selfishness  that  deters  him  from 
matrimony,  to  say  nothing  of  his  aversion  to  a  family  upon  eco- 
nomic grounds.  In  many  instances,  the  criminal  is  born  so  de- 
fective in  his  capacity  for  affection  that  he  remains  a  celibate 
from  sheer  indifference  to  family  ties.  He  is  primarily  a  selfish 
egotist. 

Marriage  may  bear  a  direct  causal  relation  to  crime.  The 
marriage  of  men  whose  income  is  meagre  is  a  case  in  point.  The 
steadily  increasing  cost  of  the  necessities  of  life  and  the  growing 
demand  for  luxuries,  especially  on  the  part  of  the  American  born, 
is  almost  prohibitive  of  matrimony  among  people  of  modest 
means.  The  strenuous,  nerve-shattering  life  led  by  Americans, 
and  the  general  dissemination  of  education,  real  and  alleged, 
fosters  impractical  ambitions  and  a  desire  for  luxuries  on  the  part 
of  people  whose  incomes  are  so  insufficient  to  gratify  their  de- 
sires that  often  opportunity  and  temptation  only  are  necessary  to 
lure  the  young  man  into  defalcation  and  his  wife  into  something 
worse.  The  neuropathic  modern  female  product  of  civilization  is 
likely  to  crave  excitement  and  diversion  which  her  humdrum, 
every-day,  domestic  life  does  not  produce.  It  is  true  that  the 
same  influences  are  at  work  in  the  case  of  single  women,  but  they 
are  oftener  furnished  diversion  and  excitement  in  a  purely  inno- 
cent manner.  Marriage  may  be  a  sacrifice  of  all  the  enjoyments 
held  dear  by  woman,  where  the  husband's  income  is  meagre.  He 
cannot  provide  a  livelihood  for  his  wife  and  at  the  same  time 
expensively  divert  her,  save  by  dishonest  means.  The  plodding, 
patient,  foreign-born  woman  may  be  safe  enough  under  these 
conditions,  but  the  high-strung,  ambitious,  mettlesome,  dress- 
and  society-loving  American  woman  is  in  danger,  if  temptation 
chances  to  come  her  way.  Should  she  have  children,  the  mother- 
love  will  quite  likely  save  her  from  herself,  once  she  becomes 
absorbed  in  the  cares  of  motherhood.  The  stress  here  is  chiefly 
upon  the  underpaid  and  overworked  husband.  Some  emergency 
arises  demanding  an  increased  monetary  outlay  for  his  family. 
Temptation  assails  him  and  he  steals.  I  am  well  aware  that  it 
is  quite  generally  aserted  that  the  average  man  can  support  two 
persons  as  well  as  one.      But  this  is  a  fallacy,  as  every  one  of 


ETIOLOGY  OF  SOCIAL  DISEASES  IN  GENERAL     141 

experience  will  testify — a  fallacy  that  has  caused  much  misery, 
many  heartaches,  and  has  greatly  added  to  the  sum  total  of  vice 
and  crime. 

The  American  woman  of  our  large  cities  has  a  special  burden 
of  responsibility  to  bear  in  the  etiology  of  social  disease.  She  of 
the  fashionable  set  lives  in  a  whirl  of  unhealthful  stress  and 
excitement.  She  sleeps  too  little  and  keeps  her  nerves  constantly 
on  the  qui  vive.  She  tipples  and  drugs  for  headaches  and  in- 
somnia, due  to  her  own  unhygienic  mode  of  life.  She  is  often 
a  degenerate  and  the  mother  of  degenerates — if,  indeed,  she  be 
a  mother  at  all. 

Statistics,  exceptions,  and  sources  of  fallacy  aside,  it  must  be 
acknowledged  that,  on  the  average,  the  individual  who  escapes 
criminality  until  marriage  is  less  likely  to  be  tempted  into  crime 
than  the  celibate. 

WOMAN    AS   A    FACTOR    IN    CRIME 

The  influence  of  woman  in  the  causation  of  crime  has  been 
recognized  since  the  earliest  times.  It  is  a  well-known  fact  that 
a  man  will  steal  or  commit  murder  for  love  where  no  other  in- 
centive would  induce  him  to  commit  an  antisocial  act.  The  man 
who  is  so  unfortunate  as  to  be  infatuated  with  a  depraved  and 
vicious  woman  is  well  on  the  road  to  a  criminal  career,  should  he 
not  have  means  to  gratify  her  multitudinous  whims.  Honestly, 
if  he  can,  but  without  stickling  much  about  methods,  a  man  who 
is  under  the  spell  of  such  a  woman  is  likely  to  find  the  where- 
withal to  gain  her  favors.  Even  the  most  exemplary  of  women 
may  be  the  innocent  cause  of  crime.  The  desire  to  win  her 
favor,  especially  if  there  be  a  rival  to  outshine,  may  induce  ex- 
penditures the  continuance  of  which  necessitates  an  increase  of 
income.  The  strong  influence  of  woman  is  so  recognized  in 
Paris,  that  the  first  order  of  the  Prefect  of  Police  after  an  im- 
portant crime  is,  "  Find,  the  woman." 

The  undoing  of  criminals  by  woman  olTsets  to  a  certain  de- 
gree her  occasional  malign  influence.  Once  the  woman  in  whom 
the  criminal  is  interested  is  located,  his  capture  is  almost  a  fore- 
gone conclusion.    Sooner  or  later  he  will  be  found  in  her  society. 


142  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

The  killing  of  the  celebrated  desperado,  "  Billy  the  Kid,"  in  New 
Mexico,  was  effected  through  the  shrewd  knowledge  of  human 
nature  possessed  by  Mr.  Pat.  Garrett,  sheriff.  Having  located 
the  Kid's  Mexican  mistress,  the  genial  sheriff  simply  lay  in  wait 
for  the  desperado  at  her  home,  and  added  another  notch  to  his 
revolver  butt  with  perfect  safety  to  himself. 

The  influence  of  sex  on  crime  has  a  bearing  on  the  fact  that, 
although  possessed  of  less  regard  for  property  rights  than  man, 
she  is  not  so  often  convicted  and  jailed  for  crime.  She  is  merely 
the  weaker  vessel  of  a  copartnership  in  which  the  male  assumes 
the  burdens  and  risks  of  criminality. 

The  refining  influence  of  woman,  in  general,  as  preventive  of 
crime,  is  one  of  the  main  stays  of  morals.  The  morals  of  hu- 
manity depends  largely  upon  the  training  it  gets  at  the  mother's 
knee.  The  home  and  the  maternal  influence  are  the  most  powerful 
agents  in  repressing  antisocial  acts.  The  child  who  does  not  get 
proper  training,  supported  by  maternal  affection,  is  in  danger,  no 
matter  what  his  heredity  may  be.  He  is  in  danger  chiefly  because 
the  principal  agent  in  the  development  of  moral  sense  is  lacking. 

Like  the  baser  elements  in  male  humanity,  the  better  element 
is  under  the  spell  of  woman.  Her  refining  influence  is  antagon- 
istic to  the  instinctive  coarseness  of  man's  nature.  For  her  appro- 
bation he  is  inspired  to  noble  deeds,  and  desirous  of  holding  the 
respect  of  the  community.  For  her,  and  for  his  children,  he  has 
that  courage  and  ambition  in  the  battle  of  life  which,  as  a  celibate, 
he  might  lack. 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  the  relation  of  sex  to  crime  is  complex 
and  many-sided. 

The  proportion  of  female  criminals  in  our  prisons  is  small. 
The  reasons  for  the  scarcity  of  female  prisoners  are  several, — 
viz. : 

1.  Among  the  distinctly  criminal  classes  the  women  are  either 
shielded  by  the  male,  or  supported  by  him  so  that  necessity  does 
not  impel  to  crime. 

2.  Among  the  respectable  classes  a  large  proportion  of  women 
are  protected  from  want  by  marriage.  If  necessity  drives  to 
crime,  the  man  does  the  criminal  work. 


ETIOLOGY  OF  SOCIAL  DISEASES  IN  GENERAL     143 

3.  The  petty  thief  among  alleged  respectable  women  is  pro- 
tected by  her  position  and  money,  and  classed  as  a  kleptomaniac 
or  a  collector  of  souvenirs. 

4.  When  women  are  confronted  by  grim  necessity,  they  select 
prostitution  rather  than  crime.  In  time  they  may  fall  into  the 
distinctly  criminal  class,  but  the  longevity  of  prostitutes  is  short, 
and  this  class  does  not  add  greatly  to  the  sum  total  of  crime. 
The  woman  who  desires  to  keep  up  a  pretence  of  respectability 
assumes  concubinage  rather  than  crime,  and  joins  the  vast  army 
of  "  kept  women."  She  must  eat  and  be  clothed,  and  merely 
responds  to  the  law  of  self-preservation. 

5.  Women  do  not  to  any  great  extent  engage  in  the  rougher 
pleasures  of  life  that  tend  to  rowdyism.  They  do  not  play  foot- 
ball nor  the  more  arduous  athletic  games.  They  eschew  prize- 
fights and  similar  exhibitions.  They  do  not  enter  active  politics 
nor  often  participate  in  riotous  strikes.  Their  timidity  is  prophy- 
lactic of  crime  of  the  violent  kind. 

6.  Women  committing  the  same  crimes  as  men  are  less  liable 
to  arrest.  The  proportion  of  women  arrested  who  come  to 
trial  is  small.  When  women  are  tried  for  crime  the  judiciary  is 
likely  to  err  on  the  side  of  leniency.  These  conditions  will  prevail 
until  we  have  female  policemen.  State's  attorneys,  and  judges, 
who,  not  having  any  gallantry  to  inhibit  their  official  acts,  will 
give  female  criminals  the  tender  consideration  that  woman 
usually  has  for  woman. 

Women,  like  children,  are  much  more  given  to  petty  crime, 
but  less  to  crime  in  general,  than  men,  as  the  statistics  of  all 
countries  prove.  These  statistics  are  fallacious  so  far  as  proving 
the  superior  morality  and  honesty  of  women  is  concerned.  As 
already  stated,  the  conditions  that  lead  to  criminality  in  men 
cause  prostitution  in  women.  Prostitution  is  the  coefficient  of 
crime,  and  acts,  so  to  speak,  vicariously  with  it.  Women  who 
have  no  scrupules  to  overcome  usually  experience  comparatively 
little  difficulty  in  securing  one  or  more  of  the  opposite  sex  to 
provide  for  their  necessities.  Where  such  women  cannot  find 
legal  providers,  they  generally  have  this  avenue  of  escape  from 
want  open  to  them.    Even  scruples  are  likely  to  be  overcome  by 


144  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

starvation.  The  gnawing  of  an  empty  stomach  is  ever  the  foe 
of  morahty. 

That  the  foregoing  circumstances,  rather  than  innate  honesty, 
explain  the  disparity  in  numbers  between  male  and  female  crim- 
inals is  shown  by  the  childish  indifference  of  women  in  general 
to  property  rights,  and  their  extreme  selfishness,  as  compared 
with  men,  in  all  matters  of  interest  that  do  not  involve  their 
affections.  It  is  generally  conceded  that  women  are  more  deceit- 
ful than  men,  and,  although  this  is  the  natural  result  of  woman's 
relatively  weak  response  to  the  law  of  self-preservation, — for  the 
weaker  sex  must  fight  its  battles  with  such  weapons  as  it  is  able 
to  wield, — it  must  certainly  be  to  some  extent  causative  of  crime. 
The  adult  female,  like  children,  has  a  weakness  for  pretty  baubles, 
which  often  leads  to  both  prostitution  and  crime. 

It  is  a  noteworthy  fact  that,  although  the  proportion  of  women 
who  are  brought  to  book  for  crime  is  small,  they  are  likely  to 
commit  crimes  of  the  most  horrible  kind.  Murder  by  poison  is  a 
favorite  crime  with  women.  A  woman  was  recently  hanged  in 
Philadelphia  for  poisoning  her  husband  and  two  children  to 
secure  a  small  insurance  on  their  lives.  Women  criminals  are 
likely  to  present  the  very  refinement  of  cruelty.  Thus  criminality 
in  women  presents  the  two  extremes,  petty  thievery  and  the  acme 
of  diabolism.  Experience  shows,  also,  that  women  are  more  in- 
tractable to  reformation  than  men. 


CHAPTER   IV 

NEUROSES    IN   THEIR   RELATIONS   TO   SOCIAL  DISEASES 

Brain  Development — The  Criminal  Brain — Insanity — The  Criminal  Skull 
— Epilepsy — Hysteria — Suicide 

General  Considerations. — The  relative  development  and 
integrity  of  the  human  brain  is  the  key-note  of  social  pathology. 
The  moral,  intellectual,  and  social  attributes  of  all  human  beings 
revolve  around  brain  anatomy  and  physiology.  The  domain  of 
psychology,  both  normal  and  morbid,  is  destined  to  grow  more 
materialistic  and  less  mysterious  with  increasing  knowledge  of 
brain  structure  and  functional  localization.  It  is  true  that  cere- 
bral localization  and  the  microscopic  and  psychic  study  of  the 
brain  are  still  in  their  infancy,  but  it  is  also  true  that  what  is 
already  known  is  suggestive  of  tremendous  possibilities.  Time 
was  when  the  map  of  the  heavens  as  revealed  by  the  telescope 
was  a  very  simple  thing ;  with  increasing  optical  power  came  the 
discovery  of  solar  systems — suns  and  galaxies  of  suns — of  which 
none  had  dared  to  dream.  As  the  microscope  and  other  modern 
means  of  scientific  research  improve,  much  of  the  material  side  of 
psychology  that  is  now  obscure  will  doubtless  be  revealed. 

Several  fundamental  propositions  may  be  advanced  in  rela- 
tion to  the  development,  structure,  and  functions  of  the  human 
brain, — viz. : 

1.  The  superior  proportionate  development  and  complexity 
of  the  brain  of  man  is  responsible  for  his  exalted  position  in  the 
scale  of  animal  development  in  general. 

2.  The  relatively  superior  brain  development  of  civilized  man 
is  responsible  for  his  dominancy  over  primitive  peoples. 

3.  The  intellectual  superiority  of  man  over  the  lower  animals, 
of  any  race  of  men  over  other  races,  or  of  the  individual  man  of 
any  race  over  other  men  of  his  own  race,  depends  upon  the  pro- 


146  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

portionate  degree  of  development  of  the  frontal  lobes  of  the 
brain,  as  compared  with  the  rest  of  the  organ. 

4.  A  sound,  well-developed,  well-proportioned,  well-nour- 
ished brain  is  necessary  to  a  well-balanced  intellect  and  a  moral 
character  that  is  consonant  with  the  standard  set  by  the  social 
system  in  which  the  given  individual  lives. 

5.  The  frontal  lobes  of  the  brain  are  the  seat  of  the  inhibitory 
or  control  centres  that  enable  normal  man,  through  his  intellect, 
reason,  judgment,  and  will  to  resist  the  primitive  animal  im- 
pulses emanating  from  other  parts  of  the  organ. 

6.  Disease,  injury,  or  maldevelopment  of  certain  portions  of 
the  brain  produces  a  perturbation  or  loss  of  the  function  of  parts 
the  innervation  of  which  is  ultimately  derived  from  the  affected 
area  of  brain  cells.  These  conditions,  affecting  certain  cortical 
areas  of  cells,  also  produce  psychic  aberrations,  the  character  of 
which  varies  with  the  area  affected. 

7.  The  importance  of  degeneracy  in  its  relations  to  social 
disease  is  due  to  its  pernicious  effects  upon  brain  structure  and 
function. 

The  relation  of  disease  of  certain  special  sensory,  general 
sensory,  and  motor  areas  to  abolition  or  impairment  of  the  spe- 
cial senses,  general  sensibility,  or  motor  power,  is  firmly  estab- 
lished. The  precise  relation  of  disease  of  special  brain-cell  areas 
to  certain  psychoses  is  not  so  well  established,  although  much 
that  is  suggestive  is  known. 

While  moral  perversions  are  known  to  depend  upon  faulty 
brain  development  or  disease  in  many  cases,  it  is  only  in  the 
grosser  and  more  palpable  forms  of  maldevelopment  or  disease 
that  the  material  foundation  of  the  psychosis  is  recognized.  The 
relation  of  coarse  brain  disease  and  such  faults  of  brain  develop- 
ment as  is  found  in  idiocy,  microcephaly,  and  hydrocephaly  to 
moral  obliquity  and  crime  is  plain  enough,  but  the  cause  of  in- 
tellectual and  moral  peculiarities  in  many  cases  is  too  occult  for 
detection  by  any  means  at  present  at  our  command.  Between  the 
two  extremes  are  cases  in  which  the  fundamental  condition  may 
or  may  not  be  detected,  according  to  the  clinical  and  pathologic 
acumen  of  the  observer,  and  the  opportunities  afforded  for  study 


NEUROSES  IN  RELATION  TO  SOCIAL  DISEASES    147 

and  observation.  Much  of  our  ignorance  of  both  normal  and 
abnormal  psychology  is  due  to  the  lack  of  attention  to  psychiatry 
on  the  part  of  the  profession  at  large.  Few  students,  indeed, 
leave  the  portals  of  our  medical  schools  with  even  a  rudimentary 
knowledge  of  the  subject.  Nerve  and  brain  physiology  and  psy- 
chology taught  in  the  laboratory  by  men  who  do  not  practise  even 
general  medicine,  and  chiefly  through  demonstrations  of  frogs' 
brains  and  spinal  cords,  is  not  likely  to  impart  much  of  value  to 
the  student.  The  sooner  teachers  discover  that  psychology  can 
only  be  taught  by  the  study  of  brain  phenomena  in  the  living 
human  subject,  combined  with  careful  experimentation  in  vivo 
upon  the  lower  animals,  and  careful  supplemental  autopsic, 
macroscopic,  and  microscopic  investigation,  the  better.  The  time 
may  come  when  it  will  be  possible  to  follow  all  institutional  cases 
of  psychosis  to  the  post-mortem  table,  and  determine  what  rela- 
tions exist  between  certain  psychopathic  phenomena  in  criminals 
and  the  insane,  and  definite  developmental  faults  or  acquired 
disease  of  the  brain. 

The  progress  of  cerebral  localization  in  its  relations  to  psy- 
chiatry and  criminology  has  been  hampered  by  a  mawkish  public 
sentimentality.  The  thousands  of  insane  and  criminals  in  this 
country  would,  under  favoring  conditions,  add  a  wealth  of  knowl- 
edge to  the  common  scientific  fund.  This  magnificent  material 
is  all  going  to  waste.  The  spectacle  of  our  asylums  and  prisons 
without  scientific  control  and  management  is  pitiable.  Superin- 
tendents whose  duties  must  needs  be  chiefly  executive,  and  over- 
worked assistants  fresh  from  school,  will  never  contribute 
anything  to  psychiatry  and  criminology.  One  of  the  most 
stupendous  errors  of  our  time  is  the  waste  of  valuable  material 
in  our  public  institutions.  Under  present  conditions,  scientific 
work  is  impossible.  It  will  always  be  impossible  unless  these 
institutions  come  to  be  managed  by  men  imbued  with  the  true 
scientific  spirit  and  backed  by  intelligent  public  opinion — if  such 
a  thing  as  the  latter  can  possibly  exist.  It  is  almost  incredible 
that  most  of  our  large  asylums  should  have  no  patholog^ists.  and 
no  laboratories  worthy  of  the  name.  Not  until  our  public  insti- 
tutions are  divorced  from  politics  can  conditions  improve. 


148  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

IMPORTANCE   OF   THE   FORE-BRAIN 

The  superior  comparative  development  of  the  fore-brain  in 
man  is  a  point  upon  which  anti-evolutionists  have  harped  ad 
nauseam.  De  Quatrefages  sweeps  aside  the  claims  of  evolution 
with  a  single  haughty  wave  of  the  hand ;  he  asserts,  in  effect, 
that,  inasmuch  as  the  fore-brain  of  man  is  developed  earlier  in 
fetal  life  than  that  of  the  monkey,  man  cannot  be  the  descendant 
of  a  more  primitive  type.  In  brief,  he  believes  that  man  was 
always  man,  and  that  his  fore-brain  has  always  developed  before 
the  rest  of  the  organ.^ 

De  Quatrefages,  then,  would  exclude  the  possibility  of  ac- 
quired organic  characteristics,  forgetting  that  the  greater  stimu- 
lation of  the  fore-brain  of  man,  through  his  complex  sensory, 
motor,  and  emotional  impressions,  should  naturally  have  resulted 
in  time  in  a  greater  developmental  activity,  producing  an  early 
growth  of  the  frontal  lobes,  as  compared  with  the  rest  of  the 
brain.  The  character  of  the  stimuli  to  which  the  brain  is  sub- 
jected determines  the  relative  degree  of  rapidity  of  brain  develop- 
ment in  general,  and  of  special  areas  in  particular.  The  brain 
of  the  new-born  child  is  very  primitive.  It  would  be  surprising, 
indeed,  if  fetal  development,  which  is  an  epitome  of  the  evolution 
of  the  race,  did  not  respond  to  the  relatively  great  stimulation  of 
the  fore-brain  during  the  life-history  of  man  as  a  species. 

The  differences  that  exist  between  the  intellectual  and  moral 
faculties  of  primitive  and  those  of  highly  civilized  man  centre 
around  the  relative  development  of  the  fore-brain.  In  inferior 
races  the  average  development  of  the  temporal,  parietal,  and 
occipital  lobes  of  the  brain  as  compared  with  the  frontal  is  high. 
The  reverse  is  true  of  the  higher  races.  Craniologists  of  ex- 
perience state  that  the  anterior  fontanelles  ossify  first  in  inferior 
races  and  last  in  superior  races.  The  less  the  development  of 
the  brain,  and  especially  of  the  frontal  lobes,  the  earlier  these  fon- 
tanelles ossify.  This  principle  is  exemplified  by  such  reversion- 
ary phenomena  as  microcephalic  idiots  among  the  higher  races. 

'  The  Natural  History  of  Man,  A.  De  Quatrefages. 


NEUROSES  IN  RELATION  TO  SOCIAL  DISEASES    149 

When  brain  development  ceases,  the  necessity  of  the  fontanelles 
ceases.  The  motor  centres  are  exceptionally  well  developed  in 
primitive  races,  as  compared  with  the  fore-brain.  The  degraded 
black  of  Australia,  the  lowest  known  type  of  man,  has  dispro- 
portionately well-developed  motor  centres,  and  no  ambition  in 
life  other  than  the  gratification  of  his  animal  appetites. 

The  plane  of  development  of  the  brain  is  more  uniform  in 
savages  than  in  the  higher  races.  With  increasing  complexity 
comes  greater  variation  in  type.  The  dead-level  of  brain  develop- 
ment and  intelligence  seen  in  the  normal  savage  is  seen  only  in 
imbeciles,  the  insane,  and  criminals  among  civilized  beings. 
Here  the  influence  of  atavism  is  evident,  hence  atavism  is  the 
foundation  of  a  large  proportion  of  social  disease,  and  is  in  its 
pure  form  independent  of  disease  of  the  body. 

It  seems  probable  that  reason  and  judgment  are  products  of 
the  fore-brain.  The  frontal  lobes  are  undoubtedly  the  seat  of  our 
altruistic  sentiments.  Hollander  says,^  "  The  frontal  lobes  as  the 
seat  of  the  reasoning  faculty  are  an  inhibitory  apparatus  against 
the  lower  and  more  instinctive  natural  impulses.  The  higher 
their  development  the  more  they  overbalance  the  rest  of  the  brain 
and  subordinate  the  instinct  of  self-preservation  and  egoism  to 
the  intellect,  and  act  as  a  check  on  the  animal  propensities." 

Total  destruction  of  the  frontal  lobes  reduces  man  to  idiocy. 
Partial  destruction  or  disease  perverts  self-control  and  impairs 
the  faculty  of  attention  and  continuity  of  thought, — in  short,  all 
intellectual  operations.  It  is  highly  probable  that  a  perfectly 
sound  intellectual  faculty  is  incompatible  with  serious  injury  or 
disease  of  the  frontal  lobes.  Inasmuch  as  they  are  inhibitory  of 
the  rest  of  the  brain,  the  resulting  disturbance  is  likely  to  be  both 
moral  and  intellectual.  The  reported  cases  in  which  serious  brain 
injury  has  been  claimed  to  have  produced  no  perturbation  of 
brain  function  have,  in  most  instances,  been  loosely  reported  by 
incompetent  observers,  to  whom  anything  less  than  complete 
dementia  or  acute  mania  signifies  mental  soundness.  Tliese 
reporters  often  make  no  attempt  whatever  at  localization  of  the 


Mental  Functions  of  the  Brain,  Bernard  Hollander. 


I50  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

lesion.  Where  the  case  does  not  comprise  an  expert  autopsy 
report,  it  is  usually  almost,  if  not  quite,  worthless. 

The  Abbe  Frere,  who  collected  a  large  number  of  European 
skulls,  now  in  the  Paris  Museum  of  Anthropology,  claimed  that 
there  had  been  a  progressive  increase  in  the  size  of  the  European 
skull,  para  passu  with  advancing  civilization,  associated  with  in- 
crease of  height  of  the  fore  part  of  the  skull  and  flattening  of 
the  occipital  region.  Examinations  and  comparative  measure- 
ments of  the  literate  and  illiterate  have  seemed  to  show  that 
frontal  development  is  greater  in  the  former.  The  importance  of 
Camper's  facial  angle  depends  upon  the  fact  that  frontal  develop- 
ment differs  in  various  races,  men  of  the  same  race,  and  between 
children  and  adults.  Maudsley  ^  notes  that  the  forehead  is  higher 
and  broader  in  civilized  man  than  in  inferior  races,  and  that  the 
narrow,  pointed  conformation  of  the  brains  of  the  anthropoids 
constitutes  the  chief  difference  from  man's  brain.  He  further 
states  that  in  imbeciles  the  frontal  convolutions  are  very  simple. 
Where  they  appear  relatively  large,  it  is  because  of  the  defective 
development  of  the  rest  of  the  brain.  They  are  really  still  simple, 
the  brain  cells  being  defective  in  development. 

The  widely  varying  results  of  brain  disease  and  brain  trau- 
matism are,  in  a  measure,  equivalent  to  experimental  proof  of 
psychic  localization.  A  previously  normal  subject,  after  a  blow 
upon  the  head,  may  retain  his  memory  and  judgment,  but  become 
morose,  suspicious,  depressed,  quarrelsome,  and  dishonest.  He 
may  lose  his  memory  for  words  and  retain  that  for  figures,  or 
vice  versa.  He  may  become  melancholy  and  suicidal,  or  gay, 
with  delusions  of  grandeur, — megalomania.  The  memory  of 
tunes  may  be  lost,  and  other  faculties  retained.  The  quality  of 
thrift  and  conservatism  may  be  replaced  by  prodigality,  vent- 
uresomeness,  and  wastefulness ;  sobriety  may  give  way  to  dip- 
somania ;  an  affectionate  disposition  may  be  succeeded  by  an 
aversion  to  and  distrust  of  family  and  friends ;  chastity  may  dis- 
appear, submerged  by  phenomenal  lewdness.  Only  too  often  are 
such  phenomena  attributed  to  *'  brain  injury"  without  any  serious 

'  Responsibility  in  Mental  Disease,  Henry  Maudsley. 


NEUROSES  IN  RELATION  TO  SOCIAL  DISEASES    151 

attempt  at  localization.  This  is  to  be  especially  regretted,  for, 
so  long  as  deliberate  experiments  upon  human  beings  are  not 
practicable,  it  is  upon  what  might  be  termed  accidental  clinical 
phenomena  that  we  must  mainly  rely  for  our  knowledge  of 
psychic  brain  functions. 

The  fundamental  principle  in  brain  development  is  the  fact 
that  the  brain,  like  every  other  organ,  within  reasonable  limits, 
responds  to  stimuli  by  growth  and  increased  functional  activity 
and  power.  Exercise  of  any  of  the  sensory  or  motor  faculties 
produces  improvement  in  the  nutrition  of  the  corresponding  brain 
area,  and  incidentally  of  the  entire  brain.  Proper  exercise  of  the 
muscles  improves  in  this  way  the  development,  not  only  of  the 
motor  centres,  but  also  of  the  fore-brain,  especially  if  the  form 
of  exercise  demands  cleverness,  keen  sight,  agility,  a  high  degree 
of  muscle  control,  and  a  certain  degree  of  calculation.  Disuse  of 
any  brain  centre,  as  shown  by  examination  of  the  leg  or  arm 
centres  some  time  after  an  amputation,  results  in  physiologic 
atrophy. 

Much  of  our  faulty  teaching  is  due  to  ignorance  of  the  fact 
that  the  special  senses  are  not  the  only  avenues  through  which  to 
influence  and  develop  the  brain.  Any  system  of  training  chil- 
dren, or,  for  that  matter,  adults,  that  does  not  recognize  the  value 
of  manual  and  general  physical  training  in  moral  and  intellectual 
development  is  a  failure.  Herein  lies  the  germ  from  which  the 
principles  of  the  prevention  and  cure  of  social  disease  will  event- 
ually develop.  I  unhesitatingly  affirm  that  muscle  control  and 
development  are  among  the  most  powerful  agencies  available  in 
inciting  brain  control  and  development.  The  obvious  corollary 
is  that  physical  training  is  an  essential  part  of  intellectual  and 
moral  training. 

The  fore-brain  being  the  seat  of  intellectual  inhibitions,  and 
developing  pari  passu  with  mental  training,  it  follows  that  the 
greater  the  degree  of  culture  and  education,  the  more  powerful 
these  inhibitions  are.  There  are  marked  exceptions  to  this  rule, 
however.  The  moral  centres  of  the  brain  may  functionate  so 
imperfectly,  or  the  emotional  centres  be  so  highly  developed,  that 
the  possessor  of  a  fine  intellect  is  exceedingly  depraved.     The 


152  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

intellect  may  control  the  emotions  but  little,  if  at  all.  Highly 
intellectual,  well-educated,  clever  persons  may  be  very  immoral, 
-the  victims  of  uncontrollable  passions  and  evil  impulses, — 
while  stupid,  ignorant  men  may  be  kind,  sentimental,  and  moral 
in  the  very  highest  degree.  The  histories  of  some  of  the  world's 
geniuses  illustrate  this  point.  It  must  be  remembered,  however, 
that  a  change  in  the  moral  faculties,  even  where  the  intellect 
remains  for  the  time  being  unimpaired,  may  herald  impending 
mental  disease.  When  a  previously  normal  individual's  mind 
becomes  fickle,  with  irritability  and  moroseness,  his  friends 
should  be  on  their  guard,  for  there  is  usually  a  serious  psychosis 
in  prospect.    This  with  due  regard  to  climacteric  influences. 

In  estimating  the  size  of  the  fore-brain  during  life,  all  of  its 
external  dimensions — in  so  far  as  the  frontal  region  of  the  skull 
is  a  criterion  of  the  size  of  the  brain  beneath — should  be  con- 
sidered. It  should  be  remembered,  too,  that  its  absolute  size  is 
not  so  important  as  its  size  relative  to  the  rest  of  the  brain.  The 
brain,  when  exposed  post  mortem,  should  be  considered,  not  alone 
from  the  stand-point  of  bulk,  but  also  with  respect  to  its  relative 
proportion  of  gray  matter,  and  size  and  complexity  of  convolu- 
tions. Superior  development  and  complexity  of  convolutions  are 
equivalent  to  a  relatively  large  brain  mass,  so  far  as  estimating 
the  intellectual  status  of  the  individual  by  the  fore-brain  is 
concerned.  Indeed,  Topinard  claims  that  the  complexity  of  con- 
volutions is  inversely  to  mass.  This  is  one  of  the  great  stum- 
bling-blocks in  the  way  of  cerebrology,  and  especially  of  crani- 
ology.  A  formidable  source  of  fallacy  is  the  fact  that  neither 
form,  size,  nor  complexity  of  brain  determines  arbitrarily  the 
intrinsic  power  of  the  cerebral  cells.  The  ultimate  and  distinc- 
tive qualities  of  the  individual  brain  probably  depend  on  dis- 
tinctive physical  properties,  but  these  properties  are  too  occult  for 
detection  by  extant  methods  of  examination.  That  the  total 
quantity  of  brain  is  not  an  accurate  criterion  of  its  psychic  quali- 
ties is  a  familiar  physiologic  observation.  Brain  is  by  no  means 
the  correlative  of  mind.  The  brains  of  Cuvier  and  Webster  were 
enormous,  it  is  true,  but  idiots  are  often  equally  blessed.  The 
great  Gambetta's  brain  weighed  but  thirty-nine  ounces,  far  below 


NEUROSES  IN  RELATION  TO  SOCIAL  DISEASES    153 

the  estimated  normal  average,  but  it  was  finely  convoluted  in 
compensation.  Bichat,  the  great  anatomist  and  pathologist,  had 
a  brain  that  was  apparently  affected  by  unilateral  atrophy,  so 
unsymmetrical  was  its  development.  In  brief,  it  may  be  said  that 
while  the  size  and  complexity  of  the  brain  are  a  fair  gauge  by 
which  to  estimate  intellectual  capacity,  the  quality  of  brain  can  be 
accurately  estimated  only  by  its  phenomena  in  the  living  sub- 
ject,— i.e.,  by  the  intellectual  and  moral  faculties  themselves. 

Spitzka  is  quite  iconoclastic  on  the  subject  of  phenomenally 
large  brains.  He  believes  that  they  are  evidences  of  healed 
hydrocephalus. 

Hollander  *  especially  emphasizes  the  fact  that  mind  and  in- 
tellect are  not  the  same.  "  Intellect  is  not  mind,  but  a  faculty  of 
mind — a  governing  faculty.  The  moral  faculties,  emotions,  and 
passions  are  all  components  of  mind.  In  proportion  as  the  frontal 
lobes  preponderate,  intellect  is  the  dominating  faculty  of  mind." 
Character  is  determined,  not  by  the  intellectual,  but  by  the  moral, 
faculties, — i.e.,  by  benevolence,  love,  selfishness,  covetousness, 
envy,  hate,  jealousy,  etc. 

NORMAL   AND   PATHOLOGIC    BRAIN    LOCALIZATION 

Granting  that  the  various  faculties  of  mind  are  presided  over 
by  specialized  cell  areas  and  groups,  it  is  easy  to  understand  that 
a  failure  of  differentiation  or  development  of  structure  may  pro- 
duce varying  results  in  the  way  of  intellectual  and  moral  abnor- 
malities. The  kind  of  abnormality  is  determined  by  the  extent  of 
the  maldevelopment  and  the  function  of  the  involved  area.  As 
already  noted,  there  may  be  a  loss  of  developmental  balance  that 
results  in  a  fine  intellect,  associated  with  a  low  moral  sense,  and 
vice  versa.  The  failure  of  differentiation  and  development  may 
be  congenital  or  acquired.  In  a  large  proportion  of  instances  of 
criminality — exclusive  of  the  criminal  insane — defective  mental 
and  moral  training  in  childhood  is  mainly  responsible  for  brain 
imperfections.    Even  mediocre  brains  are  susceptible  of  develop- 


*Op.  cit. 


154  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

ment  by  proper  training,  the  contrary  evidence  afforded  by  "  bom 
•criminals"  notwithstanding. 

It  has  been  claimed  that  there  are  not  only  individual  centres 
in  the  brain  for  the  special  senses, — a  point  too  well  settled  to 
permit  of  argument, — ^but  that  the  faculty  of  individual  memories 
is  located  in  various  special  brain-cell  areas.  Thus,  in  addition 
to  a  general  memory  centre,  there  are  centres  for  the  memory  of 
words,  numbers,  time,  and  place.  This  theory  of  localization 
dates  back  to  Franz  Joseph  Gall,  whose  atlas,  published  in  1810, 
was  the  foundation  upon  which  Spurzheim  and  Combe  built  their 
so-called  system  of  phrenolog}-, — a  system  the  good  of  which  has 
been  obscured,  on  the  one  hand,  by  fallacious  and  quackish  appli- 
cations and  perversions  of  Gall's  views,  and,  on  the  other,  by  the 
intolerance  of  a  profession  overshadowed  by  the  dogma  of  in- 
fallibility and  embittered  by  jealousy  and  prejudice  that  have  not 
yet  been  altogether  relegated  to  the  Valley  of  Dead  Lumber. 
Although  published  nearly  one  hundred  years  ago,  to  become  the 
grazing  ground  upon  which  numbers  of  scientific  thieves  have 
gained  great  reputations,  Gall's  work  in  cerebral  localization  has 
never  received  the  appreciation  it  merited.  Dr.  Bernard  Hol- 
lander is  the  most  enthusiastic  of  the  few  psychiatrists  who  have 
endeavored  to  do  justice  to  the  great  anatomo-psychologist,  who 
was  the  first  to  really  dissect  a  brain,  and  to  whom  credit  for  the 
discovery  of  even  the  speech  and  optic  centres  justly  belongs. 
Hollander's  work  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  and  important 
of  recent  contributions  to  psychiatry.  Many  psychiatrists  have 
spurned  Gall  and  all  his  works  and,  whilst  repudiating  him,  have 
coolly  appropriated  the  products  of  his  master  mind. 

The  originality  and  boldness  of  Gall  are  shown  by  the  striking 
fact  that  he  was  not  only  the  father  of  psychology,  cerebral 
anatomy,  and  cerebral  localization,  but  the  pioneer  who  fore- 
shadowed the  coming  of  modern  criminology,  a  science  which, 
while  it  is  being  overdone  almost  as  much  as  phrenology  has 
been,  nevertheless  contains  many  truths  that  are  of  practical  value 
to  humanity,  and  is  exciting  unwonted  interest  in  the  study  of 
abnormal  man.  Modern  criminology  has,  to  be  sure,  not  been  so 
daring  as  Gall  in  the  matter  of  cerebral  localization,  but  its  trend 


NEUROSES  IN  RELATION  TO  SOCIAL  DISEASES    155 

has  been  in  the  same  direction,  so  far  as  the  criminal  cranium 
and  brain  are  concerned. 

As  early  as  the  beginning  of  the  past  century,  Gall  claimed 
that  the  anterior  part  of  the  temporal  region  of  the  brain  was  the 
seat  of  the  impulse  to  theft,  the  corresponding  region  of  the  skull 
being  especially  well  developed  in  thieves.  Spurzheim  later  held 
that  this  region  was  the  centre  of  acquisitiveness, — the  founda- 
tion of  theft, — which  is  a  common  instinct  of  human  nature,  and 
a  reversionary  manifestation  of  the  instinct  displayed  by  the  dog 
in  hiding  bones.  It  may  well  be  that  future  research  will  prove 
the  correctness  of  Gall's  views  in  this  direction.  He  has  certainly 
been  vindicated  in  many  respects.  His  localization  of  the  speech 
and  optic  centres  was  afterwards  verified  and  appropriated  by 
others.  Broca's  name  will  be  immortal  through  his  appropria- 
tion or  rediscovery  of  the  speech  centre,  localized  by  Gall  many 
years  before.  Reil  gleaned  most  of  his  "  original"  ideas  from 
Gall's  demonstrations. 

Gall  located  hunger,  taste,  and  thirst  centres  in  the  anterior 
portion  of  the  temporal  lobes.  Hoppe,  Crooke,  Ferrier,"  and 
Paget  ®  have  claimed  verification  of  this  observation.  Other 
alienists  have  often  noted  insatiable,  voracious  hunger  and  thirst 
in  disease  of  the  temporal  or  temporosphenoidal  lobes. 

Gall  also  claimed  that  the  musical  sense  depended  on  the 
relative  development  of  the  brain  over  the  fissure  of  Sylvius  in 
the  temporal  region.  Injury  of  this  region  has  been  observed 
to  produce  loss  of  memory  of  tones,  where  all  other  faculties  were 
unimpaired.  He  further  claimed  that  memory  was  not  a  simple, 
but  a  complex,  faculty,  involving  a  number  of  mental  operations, 
and  to  have  located  in  the  brain  special  centres  of  form  and  color, 
and  memory  of  words,  figures,  and  objects.  The  various  mathe- 
matical and  arithmetical  prodigies  who  have  startled  the  world 
can  be  logically  explained  by  extraordinary  development  of  the 
mathematical  and  arithmetical  centres,  and  in  no  other  way 

If  there  be  aught  of  truth  in  Gall's  theory  of  localization,  it  is 


"  Functions  of  the  Brain. 

'  British  Medical  Journal.   1897,  vol. 


156  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

not  beyond  the  bounds  of  possibility  that  certain  moral  faculties 
are  presided  over  by  special  cell  areas,  and  that  injury  or  disease 
of  these  centres  may  be  productive  of  vicious  or  criminal  im- 
pulses. That  the  posterior  and  middle  lobes  of  the  brain  in  gen- 
eral preside  over  the  moral  faculties  of  the  mind,  the  anterior 
lobes  being  the  intellectual  inhibitory  centres,  is  fairly  well  estab- 
lished. It  follows,  then,  that  disease  of  what  may  be  termed  the 
moral  centres,  and  disease  of  the  inhibitory  centres  may  alike 
produce  moral  perturbations.  The  relation  between  coarse  brain 
disease  and  insane  criminality  is  so  well  established  that  neither 
theoretic  nor  clinical  evidence  is  wanting  to  support  it. 

In  view  of  the  abundance  of  clinical  evidence  in  support  of 
Gall's  views  of  cerebral  localization,  it  is  somewhat  remarkable 
that  his  ideas  have  been  permitted  to  be  practically  monopolized 
by  charlatans,  quacks,  and  literary  pirates.  Whatever  may  be 
said  of  him  as  an  extremist,  the  reflective  mind  cannot  but  appre- 
ciate the  vein  of  truth  and  practicality  that  permeates  his  work. 
His  plates  of  the  brain  have  never  been  surpassed,  and  the  thor- 
oughness and  conscientiousness  of  his  work  are  unimpeachable. 
It  is  remarkable,  but  none  the  less  true,  that  the  trend  of  modern 
criminology  is  in  the  direction  of  the  theories  of  cerebral  localiza- 
tion laid  down  by  Gall.  Consciously  or  unconsciously,  moreover, 
there  is  more  resemblance  between  some  of  the  points  that  modern 
criminologists  are  endeavoring  to  make  and  the  theory  of  phre- 
nology than  most  scientists  are  willing  to  acknowledge.  That 
Gall  was  a  philosophic  criminologist  is  shown  by  the  following 
excerpt  from  his  work : 

"  There  can  be  no  question  of  culpability  or  justice  in  the  severe 
sense;  the  question  is  of  the  necessity  of  society  preventing  crime.  The 
measure  of  culpability  and  the  measure  of  punishment  cannot  be  deter- 
mined by  a  study  of  the  illegal  act,  but  only  by  a  study  of  the  individual 
committing  it." 

Although  confessedly  beyond  detection  by  present  scientific 
methods,  variation  of  cerebral  structure  involving  perturbations 
of  developmental  equilibrium  probably  explain  individual  talent 
and  psychic  bent.    Granting  that  the  various  mental  faculties  are 


NEUROSES  IN  RELATION  TO  SOCIAL  DISEASES    157 

dependent  upon  brain  action,  and  that  quality  and  quantity  of 
brain  action  must  necessarily  depend  upon  quality  and  quantity 
of  cerebral  cells,  no  other  deduction  is  logical.  The  mathema- 
tician or  arithmetician  may  have  the  one  faculty  well  developed, 
and  no  other  faculties  worthy  of  consideration.  The  same  is  true 
of  the  musician,  the  historian,  the  artist,  the  poet,  and  the  scien- 
tist. Those  faculties  involving  the  emotions  are  most  likely  to 
stand  alone.  The  poet,  the  romancist,  the  musician,  and  the  artist 
are  less  likely  to  be  mentally  well  balanced  than  the  scientist, 
the  mathematician,  or  the  historian.  A  superb  mathematical  or 
musical  faculty  may  be  possessed  by  a  subject  who  is  otherwise 
an  idiot.  On  the  other  hand,  highly  intellectual  persons  may  be 
absolutely  devoid  of  arithmetical  or  mathematical  ability,  or  be 
tone  deaf,  with  no  perceptive  faculty  for  music.  Persons  who  are 
born  deaf,  dumb,  and  blind  may  be  very  intelligent.  Laura 
Bridgman  and  Helen  Keller  are  brilliant  examples.  It  is  asserted 
that  Miss  Bridgman,  three  years  after  entering  an  asylum  and 
school  for  the  blind,  presented  a  marked  increase  in  the  size  and 
a  change  in  the  shape  of  her  forehead.  This  is  important  as  bear- 
ing upon  the  question  of  brain  development  through  other  ave- 
nues than  the  ocular,  auditory,  and  speech  faculties,  and  also  as 
showing  that  the  intellectual  faculties  are,  to  a  certain  degree, 
independent  of  some  of  the  special  senses.  History  is  not  lacking 
in  great  men  who  were  defective  in  sight  and  hearing.  Homer 
and  Milton  were  blind,  Beethoven  was  deaf,  yet  the  imaginations 
of  these  men  were  florid  enough,  as  their  work  proves. 

Special  faculties  of  the  mind  may  lie  dormant  until  well  along 
in  adult  life,  because  of  the  absence  of  stimulation  to  develop  them 
earlier.  Great  talent  may  lie  fallow  from  lack  of  opportunity, 
until  a  period  of  life  so  late  as  to  give  a  tinge  of  the  phenomenal 
to  its  manifestations.  The  special  brain  capacity  existing,  oppor- 
tunity alone  is  necessary  to  develop  it.  The  same  proposition 
bears  directly  upon  the  tardy  development  of  criminal  tendencies. 
Where  criminality  first  develops  in  the  mid-period  of  life,  there 
are  several  possible  explanations. — viz..  ( i )  A  conp^enital  defect 
or  imperfect  development  of  a  special  brain-cell  group  or  groups 
due  to  lack  of  exercise  of  the  area  involved  during  childhood  and 


158  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

youth,  which  has  hitherto  been  inoperative  because  of  non- 
exposure  to  temptation.  (2)  Acquired  disease  of  some  portion 
of  the  brain.  (3)  Disturbance  of  mental  equiUbrium  due  to  the 
cUmacteric,  male  or  female. 

Temptation  and  opportunity  are  the  exciting  causes  under  any 
of  the  foregoing  circumstances,  in  any  case,  short  of  true  insanity. 

Moral  insanity — a  degeneration  of  the  moral  character — 
without  recognizable  intellectual  insanity  is  a  condition  that  is 
well  recognized  by  alienists,  which  tends  to  support  the  view  of 
special  centres  for  the  moral  faculties.  The  affections,  temper, 
habits,  and  moral  sense  of  the  subject  may  be  entirely  changed, 
yet  no  evidence  of  intellectual  impairment  be  discoverable. 
Drunkenness,  prodigality,  improvidence,  .  gross  immorality, 
neglect  of  family, — all  these  things  may  appear  more  or  less 
suddenly  in  previously  exemplary  individuals.  I  have  elsewhere 
spoken  in  detail  of  the  relation  of  such  perversions  to  the 
climacteric. 

Although  hallucinations  and  delusions  do  not  exist  in  the 
typic  forms  of  moral  insanity,  its  phenomena  should  be  regarded 
as  probably  the  early  stage  of  paresis.  Although  primarily  limited 
to  the  moral  faculties,  the  process  is  too  serious  to  be  regarded  as 
likely  to  remain  limited  in  its  scope.  It  must  be  admitted,  how- 
ever, that  many  cases  occur,  most  often  at  about  middle  life,  in 
which  a  complete  change  in  the  moral  character  develops,  yet  no 
evidences  of  serious  mental  disease  are  ever  discoverable  in 
after-life. 

The  relation  of  the  prefrontal  lobes  to  memory  in  general  is 
important,  although  the  various  faculties  of  memory  are  highly 
developed  in  many  cases  in  which  the  intellect  is  almost  nil. 
Bianchi  destroyed  the  cortex  of  the  prefrontal  lobes  in  dogs  and 
monkeys,  and  found  that  memory,  judgment,  and  attention  were 
impaired.  He  believes  the  cortex  of  the  region  in  question  to  be 
the  organ  of  association  of  the  various  memories.  Destruction 
of  the  prefrontal  lobes,  then,  impairs  the  intellect  much  more 
seriously  than  does  destruction  of  one  or  more  of  the  special 
memory-centres. 

Gall  located  the  centre  of  veneration  in  the  upper  portion  of 


Fig.  io. 


HYDROCEPHALUS. 

Circumference  of  skull  29  inches. 


Fig.    II. 


MICROCKPHAI.US. 


NEUROSES  IN  RELATION  TO  SOCIAL  DISEASES    159 

the  superior  frontal  convolution.  Whether  he  was  justified  in 
localizing  the  sentiment  of  veneration  in  any  part  of  the  brain  or 
not,  the  fact  remains  that  disease  or  injury  of  the  part  indicated 
by  him  is  sometimes  associated  with  mania  rcligiosa.  The  cele- 
brated "  crowbar"  case,  Gage,  who  has  done  duty  for  some 
decades  as  an  illustration  of  the  tolerance  of  injury  by  the  brain, 
sustained  a  severe  traumatism  of  the  frontal  lobes.  He  became 
profane,  irreverent,  and  oblivious  of  the  rights  and  feelings  of 
his  fellows. 

According  to  Ferrier,''  the  central  regions  of  the  brain  should 
be  termed,  not  motor,  but  psychomotor.  The  central  regions  are 
not  only  motor,  but  voluntary  motor,  and  intimately  associated 
with  the  outward  manifestations  of  intelligence.  It  is  noteworthy 
in  this  connection  that  criminal  cerebrologists  find  the  most 
marked  deviation  from  the  normal  in  the  frontal  convolutions. 
The  motor  centres  are  usually  comparatively  well  developed. 
The  primitive  cast  of  such  brains  is  at  once  obvious, 

CRANIAL    CONFORMATION — THE    CRIMINAL   SKULL 

It  has  been  well  established  that  in  a  general  way  the  form  of 
the  skull  corresponds  to  the  form  of  the  brain  which  it  contains. 
This  is  a  natural  sequence  of  the  physiologic  and  anatomic  fact 
that  the  skull  functionates  merely  as  a  case  and  protective  cover- 
ing for  the  brain,  and  adapts  itself  to  its  contents.  The  skull 
moulds  itself  upon  the  brain,  not  the  reverse.  It  is  to  be  remem- 
bered in  this  connection  that  the  time  and  degree  of  completeness 
of  closure  of  the  sutures  and  fontanelles,  both  in  fetal  life  and 
after  birth,  is  a  criterion  of,  and  is  determined  by,  to  a  great  de- 
gree, the  size,  form,  and  integrity  of  the  brain.  In  hydrocephalus 
the  extent  and  rapidity  of  closure  determine  somewhat  not  only 
the  size  of  the  abnormal  head,  but  the  degree  of  intellect.  (Figs. 
10,  II.)  Where  the  hydrocephalic  fluid  forms  so  rapidly  that  the 
head  does  not  yield  proportionately  to  the  pressure,  the  intellect 
is  seriously  impaired.     In  microcephalic  idiocy  the  sutures  and 

'  Op.  cit. 


i6o  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

fontanelles  close  prematurely.     The  microcephaly  is  not  caused 
by,  but  is  coincidental  with,  the  premature  closure. 

RELATION    OF    CRANIAL    CONFORMATION    TO    MIND 

Granting  that  the  size  of  the  brain  and  the  conformation  and 
relative  proportions  of  its  various  parts  determine,  in  the  main, 
the  intellectual  and  moral  qualities  of  the  brain,  and,  further,  that 
the  skull  is  moulded  upon  the  brain,  it  follows  that  the  form  of 
the  skull  is,  to  a  certain  extent,  a  criterion  of  the  mental  qualities 
of  the  individual.  This  is  the  basis  of  Gall's  views  of  craniology, 
which  have  been  so  perverted  and  misapplied  by  phrenologic 
quacks  and  pretenders.  Strange  to  say,  it  is  the  basis  of  much  of 
our  modern  criminal  craniology.  If  distorted  skulls  mean  any- 
thing in  criminology,  they  imply  correspondingly  aberrant  devel- 
opment of  the  brain  beneath,  with  resultant  perversions  of  the 
intellectual  and  moral  faculties.  It  is  probably  true  that  Gall  was 
extreme  in  his  views  of  criminology  and  localization,  but  I  doubt 
whether  many  scientists  of  to-day  are  in  a  position  to  fairly  judge 
him.  In  the  matter  of  careful  observation  and  analysis  of  the 
correlation  of  mental  and  craniophysical  phenomena  he  still 
stands  alone.  It  is  possible  that  many  of  those  who  have  laughed 
Gall's  phrenologic  bias  out  of  court  would  better  have  laughed 
at  the  narrow  limitation  of  the  views  and  methods  of  some  more 
modern  investigators. 

The  main  principles  of  cerebral  localization  and  the  relation 
of  mental  and  moral  phenomena  to  brain  development  and  physio- 
logic integrity  having  been  established,  the  probability  of  the 
dependence  of  criminality  upon  a  psychophysical  cause  cannot  be 
denied.  Beneath  all  phenomena  of  social  disease  lies  a  variation 
of  intellectual  and  moral  faculties  from  the  normal  average  stand- 
ard. Who  can  deny  that  varying  brain  conditions  determine  the 
quality  of  these  faculties  ?  The  cogency  of  the  foregoing  proposi- 
tions is  not  impaired  by  our  inability  to  frequently  associate  a 
given  form  of  skull  and  brain  with  a  special  or  even  general 
criminal  tendency.  Again,  failure  to  discover  any  physical  change 
whatever,  in  a  given  case,  does  not  disprove  the  physical  cause  of 
crime,  but  reflects  merely  upon  the  limitations  and  accuracy  of 


NEUROSES  IN  RELATION  TO  SOCIAL  DISEASES    i6i 

scientific  research  at  the  present  day.  Neither  does  the  physical 
theory  of  crime  disprove  the  necessity  of  moral  and  other  psychic 
influences  in  the  prevention  and  correction  of  crime ;  on  the  con- 
trary, it  proves  their  necessity,  for  psychic  influences  are  the  chief 
factor  in  brain  building,  other  things  being  equal  as  to  the  physi- 
cal health  of  the  given  subject.  I  will  again  revert  to  the  fact 
that  the  success  of  moral  and  intellectual  training  depends  upon 
the  relative  capacity  of  cerebral  development  possessed  by  the 
subject  at  birth.  As  already  remarked,  human  beings  are  not 
born  with  morals  and  intellect,  but  with  varying  degrees  of 
capacity  for  their  development. 

One  of  the  obstacles  in  the  way  of  phrenologic  observations  is 
the  lack  of  absolute  correspondence  of  cranial  and  brain  con- 
formity in  many  skulls.  This  has  been  the  chief  argument 
against  the  theory.  It  must  be  remembered,  however,  that  Gall 
himself  was  the  first  to  call  attention  to  this  formidable  source  of 
fallacy.  He  emphasized  the  fact  that  the  two  tables  of  the  skull 
did  not  necessarily  correspond,  that  the  size  of  the  frontal  sinuses 
varied,  and  that  old  age  and  disease  produced  variations.  Despite 
variations  due  to  the  influences  mentioned,  authorities  are  not 
lacking  to  prove  that,  in  general,  the  correspondence  of  skull, 
brain,  and  mental  attributes  may  be  relied  upon.  Some  of  the 
coarser  observations  are  certainly  well  grounded.  Thus,  Mauds- 
ley  calls  attention  to  the  importance  of  the  form  and  size  of  the 
frontal  region  of  the  skull  in  estimating  the  intellect,  and  em- 
phasizes the  fact  that  individual  moral  qualities  are  determinable, 
to  a  certain  degree,  by  estimating  the  comparative  development 
of  the  posterior,  middle,  and  frontal  regions.  Benedikt  goes  so 
far  as  to  say,  "A  special  part  of  the  brain  belongs  to  every  special 
part  of  the  skull.  Deficient  evolution  of  a  part  of  the  skull  indi- 
cates a  deficiency  of  the  corresponding  part  of  the  brain."  The 
accidental  secondary  prominences  that  have  no  counterpart  in  the 
brain  refer  only  to  unimportant  changeable  details  and  compara- 
tively rare  abnormalities.  It  is  significant  that  criminal  crani- 
ology  has  been  studied  along  lines  that  are  at  least  suggestive  of 
the  old  phrenologic  bias.  Modern  craniology  has  been  inclined  to 
record  many  unessentials,  but,  in  so  far  as  it  claims  the  general 


i62  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

relation  of  cranial  conformation  to  mental  and  moral  types,  it  is 
operating  along  logical  lines. 

Certain  basic  principles  of  craniology  are  fairly  well  estab- 
lished. It  is  found  that,  as  Maudsley  claims,  the  degenerate  fre- 
quently shows  an  inferior  frontal  development.  Criminals  are 
found  to  tend  rather  towards  brachycephaly,  the  middle  lobes  of 
the  brain  preponderating.  Occipital  development  is  defective,  in 
a  large  proportion  of  criminals.  In  prostitutes  and  sexual  dere- 
licts, cerebellar  development  is  frequently  excessive.  That  ex- 
tremes of  cranial  index,  high  or  low,  are  indicative  of  degeneracy 
is  fairly  well  established,  a  median  index  being  the  closest  ap- 
proximation to  the  normal  average  type.  Racial  characteristics 
should  be  given  due  consideration  in  connection  with  the  cranial 
index.  In  general,  I  believe  that  in  races  that  are  relatively 
brachycephalic,  degeneracy  tends  rather  in  the  direction  of  ex- 
aggeration of  brachycephaly,  the  dolichocephalic  racial  type  tend- 
ing towards  increased  dolichocephaly  under  similar  conditions.. 
This  accords  with  the  observations  of  others.® 

Maudsley 's  description  of  a  brutal  head  is  not  the  product  of 
a  fertile  imagination,  but  can  be  verified  by  any  one  who  will 
take  the  trouble  to  study  criminal  types.  It  is,  in  brief,  a  narrow, 
low  forehead,  flatness  of  the  dome  of  the  cranium,  a  bulging  of 
the  sides  towards  the  base,  disproportionate  development  of  the 
lower  and  posterior  part,  a  wideness  of  the  zygomatic  arch  as  in 
the  carnivora,  and  massive  jaws.  Numerous  other  observers 
practically  support  Maudsley 's  description.  Hollander  says," 
"  The  head  of  the  typic  criminal  rises  little  above  the  level  of 
ossification  of  the  parietal  and  frontal  bones — the  altruistic  senti- 
ments are  absent.  He  has  well-developed  temporal  lobes, — the 
seat  of  the  animal  propensities, — deficient  frontal  lobes, — and 
therefore  defective  intellect, — and  deficient  occipital  lobes."  As 
a  consequence  of  the  latter  deficiency,  the  criminal  is  rarely  do- 
mestic or  affectionate.  This  has  an  important  bearing  upon  the 
celibacy  of  the  criminal,  and  shows  that  his  criminality  and 
celibacy  may  depend  upon  the  same  brain  cause. 

•  Vide  The  Criminal,  Havelock  Ellis.  '  Op.  cit. 


NEUROSES  IN  RELATION  TO  SOCIAL  DISEASES    163 

Benedikt's  studies  of  Gall's  collection  of  criminal  skulls  show 
a  reversion  to  the  carnivorous  type,  as  evidenced  by  great  tem- 
poral breadth,  and  a  defective  development  of  the  cerebellar 
region. 

Lombroso  enumerates  the  following  atavistic  features  fre- 
quently noted  in  a  large  series  of  criminal  crania:  Sclerosis, 
marked  frontal  sinuses,  retreating  forehead,  gutter-shaped  nasal 
notch  of  the  frontal  bone,  ankylosis  of  the  atlas,  masculinity  of 
type  in  the  female,  double  articular  surface  of  the  occipital  con- 
dyle and  flattening  of  the  palate.  Wormian  bones,  enlarged  or 
oblique  orbits,  and  a  median  occipital  fossa. 

Many  of  the  psychopathic  phenomena  noted  in  criminals  tally 
with  the  foregoing  cerebrologic  and  craniologic  observations. 
Small  frontal  lobes  in  criminals  are  often  associated  with  im- 
becility. Even  among  criminals  who  are  not  classed  as  insane, 
great  irascibility,  destructiveness,  and  impulses  to  violence  are 
frequent.  Not  only  is  their  animality  excessive,  but  their  inhibi- 
tions are  weak,  as  might  be  expected  from  their  peculiarities  of 
cranial — i.e.,  cerebral  and  cerebellar — conformation.  The  ego- 
tism and  lack  of  altruistic  sentiments  of  criminals  are  natural 
sequences  of  the  same  physical  conditions  that  proper  develop- 
mental influences  brought  to  bear  upon  the  fore-brain  during 
childhood  might  have  corrected  in  many  instances.  Mania 
furiosa,  irascibility,  delusions  of  persecution,  and  auditory  hallu- 
cinations are  peculiarly  frequent  among  criminal  insane. 


INSANITY    IN    ITS    RELATIONS   TO    CRIME 

Assuming  that  crime  is  due  to  degeneracy,  and  that  the  foun- 
dation of  degeneracy  is  neuropathy,  crime  in  general  might  be 
said  to  be  a  neurosis.  This,  however,  is  too  broad  an  assumption 
to  be  practical,  especially  in  view  of  the  difficulty  in  establishing 
an  arbitrary  standard  of  the  normal  type  of  mankind.  There  are. 
however,  many  instances  of  crime  in  which  a  distinct  neurosis  of 
one  kind  or  another  is  the  underlying  cause.  Neuroses  of  various 
kinds  are  often  found  in  criminals,  but  nothing  will  now  be  con- 
sidered save  those  distinctly  recognizable  neuropathic  phenoinena 


i64  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

which  may  occasionally  act  as  indubitable  causes  of  given  crimi- 
nal acts. 

In  strict  justice,  an  insane  person  cannot  be  considered  a  crim- 
inal. Criminality,  in  the  eyes  of  the  law,  implies  responsibility, 
with  a  certain  degree  of  knowledge  of  the  immorality, — i.e.,  the 
antisocial  character  of  the  given  act.  Were  we  to  split  hairs  in 
nomenclature,  we  might  say  that  an  insane  person  cannot  become 
a  criminal,  but  a  criminal  may  become  insane.  Insanity  develops 
among  criminals  more  frequently  than  what  is  termed  criminality 
does  among  the  insane.  Notwithstanding  the  foregoing,  we  are 
obliged  to  legally  classify  many  insane  antisocial  acts  as  crimes. 
As  Ireland  ^"  remarks,  "  Medical  insanity  and  legal  irrespon- 
sibility can  never  have  the  same  boundary-line." 

The  legal  line  of  demarcation  between  criminality  and  insanity 
in  general  was  once  imperceptible.  Criminals  and  the  insane  were 
alike  punished  in  the  most  atrocious  manner.  In  some  periods 
and  in  some  localities  both  were  supposed  to  be  possessed  of 
devils  that  were  to  be  exorcised,  chiefly  by  sorely  afflicting  the 
bodies  of  their  hosts.  History  shows  but  little  that  is  flattering 
to  humanity  in  the  old-time  treatment  of  criminals  and  the  insane. 
Gall  showed  that  insanity  meant  brain  disease,  and  later,  the  im- 
mortal Pinel  broke  the  chains  of  the  insane,  and  established  the 
fact  that  the  madman  is  an  invalid,  demanding  the  same  kind  con- 
sideration as  other  sick  persons.  The  differentiation  of  the  insane 
from  the  criminal  has  never  been  complete,  because  of  the  exist- 
ence of  a  numerous  class  of  insane  dominated  by  criminal 
impulses.  With  the  passing  of  time,  however,  the  tendency 
has  been  to  the  growth  of  the  humane  idea,  as  applied  to  indi- 
viduals who  commit  crime  because  of  insane  impulses  or  a  lack 
of  responsibility  due  to  brain  disease.  It  is  true  that  the  appli- 
cation of  humane  and  intelligent  principles  in  the  management  of 
the  criminal  has  not  kept  pace  with  progress  in  the  treatment  of 
the  insane,  yet  Pinel,  the  master  alienist,  and  John  Howard,  the 
prison  reform  "  crank,"  would  find  much  to  delight  them  were 
they  to  return  to  earth  to-day.     In  no  civilized  social  system 

"Through  the  Ivory  Gate. 


NEUROSES  IN  RELATION  TO  SOCIAL  DISEASES    165 

worthy  of  the  name  are  the  insane  now  regarded  as  demon- 
possessed  brutes,  to  be  treated  worse  than  dogs.  In  all  social 
systems  of  an  elevated  type,  the  condition  of  the  criminal  in 
prison  has  also  been  alleviated,  until,  while  many  instances  of 
brutal  and  stupid  treatment  exist,  the  trend  is  now  towards  a 
betterment  of  penology  which,  combined  with  and  dominated 
by  modern  scientific  ideas,  must  eventually  work  great  good. 

The  tendency  to  leniency  towards  criminals  alleged  to  be 
irresponsible  from  brain  disease  has,  to  be  sure,  been  taken  ad- 
vantage of  by  the  criminal  and  his  lawyer,  but  it  has,  neverthe- 
less, on  the  average,  been  beneficent  so  far  as  doing  justice  to 
those  who  are  irresponsible  is  concerned.  Whether  it  would  be 
more  logical  to  kill  or  immure  for  life  the  criminal  lunatic  than 
the  man  who  is  responsible  for  his  actions  is  not  a  subject  for 
discussion  at  this  juncture.  Admitting  that  the  plea  of  insanity 
has  been  abused  at  the  Bar,  the  fact  remains  that  a  large  pro- 
portion of  insane  criminals  are  punished.  Richter  claims  that  in 
a  series  of  one  hundred  and  forty-four  lunatics  tried  for  crime,  in 
Germany,  only  about  twenty-five  per  cent,  were  recognized  in 
court  as  insane.  Any  one  familiar  with  the  subtlety  of  insanity 
in  many  cases,  and  with  the  stupidity  of  courts,  will  not  be  sur- 
prised at  this.  Lombroso  states  that  one  criminal  in  twenty  is 
insane.     This  is  far  too  high  an  estimate  for  American  prisons. 

Although,  as  Ellis  "  says,  "  The  insane  criminal  is  clearly  in 
a  category  of  his  own,"  it  does  not  follow  that  he  is  classified  with 
ease  and  labelled  at  will.  The  standard  of  sanity,  and  conse- 
quently the  standard  of  responsibility,  is  a  variable  and  uncertain 
quantity,  and  the  irregularity  and  unreliability  of  the  phenomena 
of  insanity  are  well  known.  Then,  too,  many  cases  of  criminality 
involve  individuals  who  are  just  on  the  border-line  between 
sanity  and  insanity.  Although  in  such  cases  careful  subsequent 
study  will  often  serve  to  clear  up  the  doubt,  much  injustice  is 
done  by  snap  judgments,  hurried  convictions,  and  unreasonably 
speedy  commitments  or  executions. 

Granting  that  a  perfectly  sound  intellect  and  moral  sense  are 

"  The  Criminal. 


i66  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

dependent  upon  an  organically  and  functionally  perfect  brain,  it 
is  easy  to  understand  that  both  organic  and  so-called  functional 
brain  disease  may  develop  criminal  impulses.  When  I  use  the 
term  "  functional,"  it  is  in  deference  to  the  fact  that  in  many 
cases  of  insanity  no  evidence  of  organic  change  can  be  found  by 
any  known  method  of  research.  Whether  there  is  such  a  thing 
as  functional  brain  disease  is  an  open  question,  although  the 
existence  of  cerebro-toxaemia  without  structural  change  in  the 
brain  or  its  envelopes  lends  color  to  the  functional  theory.  Even 
here,  however,  there  is  a  physiochemical  foundation  for  the  per- 
turbation of  function. 

Granting  that  typically  insane  individuals  may  present  no 
evidences  of  brain  disease  post  mortem,  by  any  method  of  exami- 
nation now  in  vogue,  it  is  easy  to  understand  the  possibility  of 
brain  disease  underlying  criminality,  although  the  subject  shows 
no  evidence  of  what  is  ordinarily  termed  insanity,  nor  any 
changes  post  mortem  which  serve  to  distinguish  his  brain  from 
that  of  any  other  individual  of  the  same  racial  type. 

One  of  the  most  hotly  contested  questions  in  criminal  juris- 
prudence has  been  that  of  emotional  and  impulsive  insanity. 
This  bears  especially  upon  murder  and  suicide.  The  most  typic 
crime  involving  the  question  of  emotional  insanity  is  wife  murder 
followed  by  suicide,  or  perhaps  by  the  murder  of  a  family  of 
children  prior  to  the  suicide  of  the  miserable  husband  and  father. 
Jealousy  is  the  impelling  motive  here  in  a  majority  of  instances. 
Whether  the  jealousy  is  well  or  ill  founded  is  of  no  account  in 
the  final  result.  The  lack  of  mental  stability  existing,  any  griev- 
ance is  real  to  the  victim  of  the  impulse  to  kill.  Murders  of  this 
class  are  always  to  be  scientifically  explained  on  the  ground  of 
insanity,  whatever  the  attitude  of  the  law  may  be.  The  man  who 
discovers  the  faithlessness  of  a  beloved  wife  or  mistress  is  often 
no  more  accountable  for  his  subsequent  actions  than  the  veriest 
lunatic  in  a  madhouse.  Jealousy  is  the  most  powerful  and  dis- 
turbing emotion  of  the  human  mind.  Add  to  this  wounded  pride, 
a  sense  of  outraged  honor,  and  the  utter  blankness  of  the  future 
that  looms  up  so  horridly  before  the  man  in  the  first  flush  of  dis- 
covery of  his  betrayal,  and  the  mind  that  remains  sound  and  well 


NEUROSES  IN  RELATION  TO  SOCIAL  DISEASES    167 

balanced  must  needs  belong  to  a  very  indifferent  being.  It  does 
not  necessarily  follow,  of  course,  that  the  injured  person  will  do 
murder  or  commit  suicide.  The  power  of  the  controlling  centres 
varies,  and  individuals  act  differently  under  similar  conditions. 
What  has  been  said  of  the  betrayed  man  applies  with  equal,  if 
not  greater,  force  to  the  betrayed  woman. 

The  border-line  between  jealousy  and  insanity  is  easily  over- 
stepped. Frelat  ^-  and  Dores  ^^  have  expatiated  at  length  upon 
"  hyperesthesias  of  jealousy,"  in  which  the  sufferer  finds  cause 
for  suspicion  in  the  most  trivial  circumstances.  An  unusual  ex- 
pression, a  word  that  ordinarily  would  have  no  especial  signifi- 
cance, iimocent  and  accidental  meeting  with  the  opposite  sex ;  in 
short,  any  action  whatever  of  the  suspected  person  is  construed 
by  the  jealous  monomaniac  into  evidence  of  odious  infidelity. 
Once  suspicion  is  aroused,  nothing  is  too  trivial  to  serve  as  fire 
to  the  heart  of  the  victim  of  jealous  suspicion.  The  monomania 
once  developed,  murder  and  suicide  are  logical  sequences. 

Morbid  and  insane  jealousy  is  especially  frequent  in  alco- 
holics. Krafft-Ebing,^*  especially,  calls  attention  to  jealous  in- 
sanity as  a  manifestation  of  the  neuropsychic  degeneracy  of 
alcoholics. 

The  epidemic  tendency  of  homicidal  monomania  from  jeal- 
ousy is  a  matter  of  common  observation.  Psychic  suggestion  and 
imitation  are  very  powerful  factors  here.  The  published  inci- 
dents of  one  wife  murder  suggest  not  only  a  reason,  but  an 
uncontrollable  impulse  to  kill,  and  often  the  precise  method  of 
murder.  It  is  true  that,  in  many  instances,  careful  inquiry  will 
elicit  symptoms  of  insanity  existing  long  before  the  murder,  but 
in  many  cases  the  development  of  symptoms  of  mental  aberration 
are  synchronous  with  the  psychic  shock  of  the  cause,  or  apparent 
cause,  for  jealousy.  It  is  certain  that  cases  of  murder  of  chil- 
dren by  parents  who  justify  themselves  by  their  inability  to  care 
for  and  rear  them  properly  are  due  to  insanity. 


"  La  Jalousie  Morbide. 

"  L'Amour  Morbide. 

"  Treatise  on  Mental  Disease. 


i68  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

The  history  of  crime  is  not  lacking  in  cases  of  homicidal  mono- 
mania in  which  multiple  murders  have  been  committed  without 
provocation  and,  so  far  as  could  be  determined,  without  a  tangible 
object.  A  celebrated  case  of  this  kind  was  the  murder  of  two 
entire  families  in  London,  by  one  John  Williams,  in  1812,  The 
victims  numbered  eight  in  all.  Williams  was  described  as  a  tall, 
yellow-haired,  ghastly-pale  individual,  with  sinister,  glaring  eyes. 
He  was  said  to  be  of  a  highly  sensitive,  refined  nature.  He  was 
finally  arrested,  and  before  his  trial  hanged  himself  in  his  cell. 
Another  excellent  historic  example  of  homicidal  monomania  is 
Theodore,  King  of  Abyssynia.^* 

Even  in  cases  where  robbery  is  the  ostensible  object,  the  un- 
necessary murder  of  a  number  of  persons  justifies  doubts  of  the 
murderer's  sanity. 

While  it  would  be  a  dangerous  principle  to  establish  in  juris- 
prudence, it  is  probable  that  a  majority  of,  if  not  all,  sudden 
impulses  to  murder  are  due  to  emotional  insanity.  The  relative 
degree  of  responsibility  from  a  medico-legal  stand-point  has  no 
bearing  upon  the  truth  of  the  assertion  that  the  civilized  man 
who  yields  to  a  sudden  impulse  to  kill  his  fellow-man,  whether 
in  anger  or  not,  is  not  in  a  normal  condition  for  the  time  being. 
Deliberate,  purposeful  assassination  for  selfish  objects,  murders 
by  criminals  in  the  pursuit  of  their  occupation,  and  killings  in 
self-defence  are  usually  to  be  excluded  from  the  category  of 
murders  by  the  emotionally  insane,  although  the  so-called  killing 
in  self-defence  is  quite  likely  due,  in  some  instances,  to  temporary 
insanity  from  fear  of  bodily  harm. 

In  cases  of  assault,  murder  or  suicide  committed  without 
either  provocation  or  possible  object,  insane  impulse  is  often 
assigned  as  a  cause.  In  establishing  such  a  diagnosis,  the  abso- 
lutely purposeless  and  unprovoked  nature  of  the  crime  is  very 
important  and,  while  in  many  instances  no  mental  aberration  is 
discoverable,  careful  inquiry  into  the  personal  history  and  ante- 
cedents of  the  subject  will  usually  elicit  a  neuropathic  taint,  and 
perhaps  distinctly  neuropathic  phenomena.    The  sudden  impulse 

"  Vide  Ireland,  Through  the  Ivory  Gate. 


NEUROSES  IN  RELATION  TO  SOCIAL  DISEASES    169 

to  kill  may  be  developed  by  alcoholic  indulgence.  Attacks  of 
impulsive  insanity  have  been  likened  to  epilepsy.  They  often 
show  a  certain  periodicity,  and  are  followed  by  a  relief  of  nervous 
tension,  with  lamb-like  docility.  The  danger  of  forensic  mis- 
takes in  such  cases,  so  far  as  society's  safety  is  concerned,  is 
mitigated  by  the  fact  that  impulsive  insane  murderers  are  the 
most  dangerous  class,  and  their  permanent  seclusion  or  "  re- 
moval" is  strictly  altruistic  in  result,  no  matter  how  fallacious  the 
motive  may  be. 

Murders  by  persons  under  the  influence  of  alcoholic  or  other 
drugs  are  illustrative  of  the  disasters  that  may  result  from  tem- 
porary mental  aberration.  That  the  alcohol-crazed  murderer  is 
temporarily  insane  is  scientifically  probable,  no  matter  what  the 
attitude  of  the  law  on  the  question  may  be.  The  psychic  state  of 
the  subject  is  normal  only  so  long  as  his  intellectual  inhibitions 
control.    Once  they  are  removed,  he  is  for  the  nonce  insane. 

The  point  at  which  responsibility  terminates  and  irresponsi- 
bility begins  is  sometimes  difficult  to  establish.  It  would,  how- 
ever, be  hazardous  to  apply  too  literally  Prosper  Despine's  view 
that  all  great  malefactors  are  irresponsible  because  deprived  of 
the  nobler  sentiments  of  humanity,  and  especially  of  moral 
sense.^"  To  him  the  absence  of  a  sense  of  the  wickedness  of  a 
criminal  act  and  a  complete  lack  of  remorse  subsequent  to  it  is 
proof  positive  of  irresponsibility, — i.e.,  moral  insanity.  Accord- 
ing to  Despine's  view,  only  the  criminal  whose  acts  involve  the 
operation  of  a  free  will  should  be  punished ;  the  morally  insane 
should  not.  His  view  is  fallacious,  because  neither  a  lack  of 
appreciation  of  the  wickedness  of  an  act  nor  incapacity  for 
remorse  proves  absence  of  will. 

The  chief  predisposing  cause  of  murder  under  the  stress  of 
emotional  or  alcoholic  excitement  is  necessarily  a  certain  degree 
of  mental  instability  inherent  to  the  given  subject.  One  of  the 
most  powerful  predisposing  factors  is  the  knowledge  of  the 
possession  of  a  weapon.  The  psychic  suggestion  involved  in 
carrying  and  handling  a  deadly  weapon  has  cost  many  valuable 

"  Psychologic  Naturale. 


I70  THE   DISEASES   OF   SOCIETY 

lives,  both  by  murder  and  suicide.  There  is  a  peculiar  and 
fascinating  suggestiveness  about  weapons  which,  in  some  indi- 
viduals, may  at  any  moment  lead  to  their  use,  under  trifling 
causes  of  emotional  excitement.  Were  this  psychic  fact  better 
appreciated,  the  sale  and  carrying  of  deadly  weapons  would  be 
more  strictly  regulated.  The  mere  possession  of  a  weapon  is,  in 
some  subjects,  an  announcement  of  willingness  and  readiness  to 
kill  on  occasion.  The  English  law  wisely  holds  that  a  weapon 
found  upon  a  burglar  or  footpad  is  prima  facie  evidence  of  intent 
to  kill. 

The  readiness  with  which  weapons  are  to  be  obtained  is  an 
illustration  of  our  social  inconsistency.  One  may  sell  a  pistol 
and  ammunition,  or  a  dagger ;  he  may  not  sell  a  small  dose  of 
morphine,  according  to  the  law.  Morphine  in  bulk,  however,  he 
may  either  sell  or  purchase  at  will.  Small,  therapeutic  doses  of 
deadly  poisons  are  sold,  or  supposed  to  be  sold,  on  a  physician's 
prescription  only,  but  any  drug  clerk  is  privileged  to  supply  in 
bulk  enough  poison  to  kill  a  regiment.  The  ease  with  which 
poison  may  be  procured  is  one  of  the  most  potent  factors  in  the 
suggestion  of  murder  and  suicide.  Practically  no  restrictions  are 
put  upon  the  sale  of  some  of  the  deadliest  poisons.  It  requires 
no  ingenuity  whatever  to  purchase  carbolic  acid  or  arsenic. 

There  are  many  clinical  facts  that  apparently  support  the  view 
of  localization  of  special  faculties  of  the  mind  in  narrowly  circum- 
scribed areas.  Emotional  insanity  and  melancholia — the  latter  of 
which  is  intimately  associated  with  suicide — have  been  shown  to 
be  often  associated  with  disease  or  injury  of  the  angular  and 
supramarginal  gyri  of  the  parietal  lobes."  It  is  noteworthy  in 
this  connection  that  melancholia  may  exist  without  any  intel- 
lectual aberration  whatever.  This  alone  lends  color  to  the  proba- 
bility that  melancholia  may  be  due  to  conditions  which  in  nowise 
affect  the  frontal  lobes. 

The  line  of  demarcation  between  simple,  violent,  uncon- 
trollable anger  and  mania  fttriosa — defined  by  Hollander  as  "  that 
form  of  mental  derangement  characterized  by  ungovernable  spon- 

"  Hollander,  op.  cit. 


NEUROSES  IN  RELATION  TO  SOCIAL  DISEASES    171 

taneous  motor  impulses  and  violent  anger,  with  or  without  knowl- 
edge of  one's  surroundings" — is  somewhat  shadowy.  The  one 
may  drift  almost  imperceptibly  into  the  other.  As  already  indi- 
cated, it  is  questionable  whether  every  individual  who  kills  in  a 
sudden  outburst  of  anger  is  not  emotionally  insane.  His  degree 
of  legal  responsibility  is  not  in  question  here.  Killing  in  anger 
may  be  inconsistent  with  a  sound  mind,  although,  on  the  other 
hand,  murder  may  be  the  result  of  calm,  dispassionate  reflection 
and  deliberate  intent. 

Mania  fiiriosa  is  a  frequent  cause  of  assault  and  murder. 
Irascible  insanity  may  be  associated  with  epilepsy, — furor  epilcp- 
ticus, — both  being  dependent  on  the  same  cause.  A  tumor  or 
inflammation  of  the  brain,  especially  of  the  temporosphenoidal 
lobe,  may  be  the  cause.  The  furor  epilepticus  may,  however, 
exist  where  no  localization  of  the  lesion  is  possible.  Numerous 
cases  have  been  noted  in  which  excessive  development  of  the 
temporal  lobes  produced  mania  furiosa.  A  case  is  reported  in 
which,  associated  with  this  abnormal  brain  development,  the  sub- 
ject showed  fnania  furiosa,  kleptomania,  and  pyromania.^^ 

An  actual  enlargement  of  the  head,  chiefly  in  the  temporal 
region,  has  been  noted  in  mania  furiosa.  Middle-ear  disease  has 
been  known  to  be  followed  by  violent  homicidal  mania.  Lesions 
of  the  lateral  ventricles,  such  as  solid  gumma,  and  cystic  or  other 
tumors,  also  produce  it.  It  may  be  due  to  mere  pressure,  menin- 
gitis, or  toxins. 

It  has  been  noted  by  Ferrier  that  experimental  excitation  of 
the  temporosphenoidal  convolutions  in  monkeys,  dogs,  and  cats 
develops  the  phenomena  characteristic  of  violent  rage  in  these 
animals.  Benedikt  has  noted  the  resemblance  of  the  brains  of 
murderers  to  those  of  the  carnivora,  in  respect  to  the  relatively 
large  development  of  the  temporal  lobes.  Meynert  made  a  com- 
parison of  the  brains  of  the  herbivora  and  carnivora,  with  refer- 
ence to  the  comparative  development  of  the  temporal  region  of 
the  brain,  and  showed  it  to  be  greater  in  the  latter.  It  is  signifi- 
cant that  Gall,  nearly  a  hundred  years  ago,  noted  the  prominence 


'W.  L.  Babcock,  State  Hospitals  Bulletin,  New  York,  1896. 


172  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

of  the  temporal  lobes  in  the  carnivora  and  in  murderers,  and 
claimed  this  region  to  be  the  seat  of  the  irascible  emotions. 

Mania  furiosa  does  not  necessarily  involve  the  intellect,  so  far 
as  shown  by  symptoms  between  attacks.  Pinel  long  ago  said, 
"  A  madman  may  have  no  intellectual  bias,  and  yet  be  the  victim 
of  mania  furiosa."  Cases  of  moral  turpitude,  mania  furiosa,  and 
other  mental  disturbances  are  met  with  in  which  the  patient  is' 
harshly  treated,  because  of  supposed  moral  perverseness,  and 
only  the  autopsy  has  shown  how  undeservedly  the  patient  has 
been  condemned.  When  a  tumor  or  other  disease  of  the  brain  is 
found  in  a  punished  criminal,  the  case  is  most  pathetic,  however 
altruistic  the  result. 

One  can  readily  understand  that  cerebro-toxemia,  acting  by 
irritation  of  the  temporal  and  occipital  lobes,  whilst  at  the  same 
time  inhibiting  the  functions  of  the  frontal  lobes,  may  give  rise 
to  immoral  or  criminal  acts. 

Cases  of  homicidal  and  suicidal  impulses  following  head  in- 
juries or  sunstroke  are  very  frequent.  In  some  of  these  cases 
dipsomania  affords  the  intermediary  factor  necessary  to  the  de- 
velopment of  the  impulse  to  murder.  I  recall  a  case  of  my  own 
in  which,  following  sunstroke,  a  single  glass  of  liquor  developed 
attacks  of  homicidal  mania.  On  one  occasion  I  narrowly  escaped 
stabbing  at  the  hands  of  this  patient. 

Hollander  '"  reports  a  case  of  pyromania,  in  which  a  brain 
tumor  was  found  on  autopsy,  and  further  calls  special  attention 
to  the  intimate  association  of  irascibility  with  lesions  of  the 
temporosphenoidal  lobe,  and  to  the  existence  of  a  basal  lesion 
near  the  same  region  in  certain  cases  of  epilepsy  characterized  by 
violent  mania,  preceding  or  following  the  fit.  He  also  attributes 
the  mental  aberrations  of  middle-ear  diseases  to  a  similarly 
localized  lesion. 

Either  melancholia  or  mania  furiosa  may  be  associated  with 
delusions  of  persecution,  and  may  lead  to  murder  or  suicide,  the 
subject  killing  himself  to  avoid  his  imaginary  persecutors,  or 
killing  some  one  else  whom  he  considers  a  persecutor.    He  may 

"Op.  cit. 


NEUROSES  IN  RELATION  TO  SOCIAL  DISEASES    173 

kill  himself  unintentionally  while  trying  to  escape  hallucinatory 
persecutions,  by  jumping  from  a  height  or  into  water.  These 
cases  are  often  associated  with  hallucinations  of  hearing  and 
suspicional  delusions,  such  a  combination  often  being  seen  in 
middle-ear  disease.  This  has  been  attributed  to  localized  lesion 
of  the  posterotemporal  portion  of  the  parietal  lobe. 

I  recently  saw  a  case  of  a  woman  suffering  from  recurrent 
melancholia  with  suicidal  impulses,  that  was  very  interesting. 
There  was  a  history  of  an  occipital  head  injury,  some  years  be- 
fore, the  connection  of  which  with  the  mental  symptoms  was  not 
well  established.  The  intellect  was  clear  and  the  subject  realized 
the  gravity  of  her  condition  as  well  as  the  unreality  of  her 
hallucinations.  At  periodic  intervals  she  suffered  with  great 
mental  depression,  occipital  headache,  and  persecution  by  mock- 
ing faces  of  whose  unsubstantiality  she  was  fully  cognizant. 
Associated  with  these  phenomena  there  was  an  uncontrollable 
impulse  to  suicide.  What,  if  any,  pelvic  disease  existed  as  a 
possible  cause  had  not  been  determined. 

Epileptics  often  show  great  emotional  irritability,  usually  just 
before  or  after  an  attack,  becoming  very  quarrelsome,  violent, 
and  dangerous.  The  disease  is  peculiar,  on  the  other  hand,  in 
that  patients  often  continue  in  an  extreme  of  placidity  and  gentle- 
ness. According  to  Kraepelin,^**  sudden  morbid  impulses  are 
frequent,  and  characteristic  of  epileptic  insanity.  These  are 
largely  due  to  irritability  or  lack  of  self-control.  Such  patients 
will  attack  any  one  who  disturbs  them,  and  often  in  blind  rage 
injure  innocent  by-standers  without  provocation.  These  im- 
pulses are  not  confined  to  the  pre-  or  post-paroxysmal  stage,  but 
may  occur  at  long  intervals  between  seizures.  The  wild  stage  of 
blind  rage — the  running  amok — of  epileptics,  striking  at  every- 
body within  reach,  is  a  nerve-storm  that  has  been  termed  the 
epileptic  "  equivalent,"  acting  vicariously,  so  to  speak,  with  the 
fits.  Many  epileptics  are  especially  dangerous  to  others,  although 
they  rarely  exhibit  suicidal  impulses.  In  some  instances  they  are 
kleptomaniacs. 

**  Lehrbuch  der  Psychiatric. 


174  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

It  is  a  peculiar  fact  that  many  insane  are  not  altogether  irre- 
sponsible. Even  the  epileptic  furor  is  not  infrequently  restrained 
by  fear  of  consequences.  The  patient  will  sometimes  attack  only 
those  who  are  not  physically  dangerous  to  him.  Many  insane 
have  a  certain  consciousness  of  their  condition.  In  many  in- 
stances the  patient  is  as  well  aware  of  his  condition  as  those  about 
him.  This  question  is  worthy  of  note  in  considering  the  question 
of  the  value  of  correctionary  measures  in  insane  criminals. 

One  of  the  most  dangerous  types  of  insane  is  the  paranoiac, 
who,  under  the  dominance  of  a  fixed  delusion  of  some  kind,  is 
very  likely  to  commit  murder.  The  victim  of  delusions  of  perse- 
cution is  to  be  regarded  as  especially  dangerous.  The  diagnosis 
and  the  determination  of  the  degree  of  responsibility  are  some- 
times very  difficult  in  paranoiacs.  This  accounts,  in  part,  for 
the  differences  in  expert  opinions  in  certain  murder  trials.  The 
Guiteau  case  is  a  pertinent  illustration. 

Insanity  in  criminals  is  not  of  a  special  type.  The  more 
insane  they  are,  the  more  they  approximate  to  the  non-criminal 
insane.  Non-criminal  insane  are  often  more  depraved  than  those 
with  a  criminal  record.  One  of  the  best  behaved  and  most  proper 
in  speech  of  all  the  patients  in  an  asylum  ward  was  a  professional 
prostitute.  This  was  in  accordance  with  the  change  in  character 
often  seen  in  the  insane.  There  is,  however,  no  absolute  or  gen- 
eral rule.  The  worst  patients  in  an  asylum  are  generally  the 
alcoholic  cases.  They  are  not  always  the  most  violent,  but  the 
most  treacherous  and  unreliable.  The  most  dangerous  insane  are 
those  whose  insanity  is  least  apparent  and  only  partial, — e.g., 
the  paranoiacs  and  the  quiet  melancholiacs. 

Kleptomania  is  a  much  abused  term.  In  strict  justice,  it 
should  be  applied  only  to  stealing  by  the  unequivocally  insane. 
In  every-day  life  the  diagnosis  revolves  largely  around  the  social 
standing  of  the  thief.  What  would  be  indubitable  thievery  in  a 
poor  servant  girl  is  styled  by  courtesy  kleptomania  in  "  Miladi." 
The  "  silk-stocking"  variety  of  kleptomania  is  only  too  familiar 
to  the  managers  of  the  large  department  stores. 

It  is  true  that  an  uncontrollable  impulse  to  steal  exists  in  sane 
people  who  are  otherwise  normal,  but  in  most  instances  this 


NEUROSES  IN  RELATION  TO  SOCIAL  DISEASES    175 

impulse  requires  very  careful  analysis  before  it  is  justifiable  to 
pronounce  it  kleptomania.  Stealing  without  rhyme  or  reason — 
i.e.,  where  no  necessity  exists,  where  the  articles  stolen  are  use- 
less, and  where  no  attempt  is  made  to  dispose  of  them — is  to  be 
looked  upon  with  suspicion.  There  may  be  a  question  even  here 
as  to  whether  an  atavistic  criminal  tendency — the  predatory  in- 
stinct of  the  monkey  or  dog — rather  than  insanity,  is  not  the 
explanation.  In  any  event,  the  phenomenon  is  observed  only  in 
degenerates,  and  there  should  be  no  splitting  of  hairs  in  differ- 
entiating wealthy  and  aristocratic  subjects  from  those  less  for- 
tunately situated.  In  genuine  kleptomania  other  evidences  of 
insanity  will  usually  be  found.    As  Blandford  ^^  says, — 

"  When  we  are  consulted  about  stealing  by  persons  supposed  to  be 
insane,  and  to  whom  the  article  stolen  is  of  no  moment,  we  may  suspect 
one  of  several  things, — viz. : 

1.  "  If  the  individual  is  a  man  of  twenty-five  to  fifty-five  years  of 
age,  we  must  examine  him  closely  for  early  evidences  of  general  paresis, 
in  which  stealing  is  not  uncommon. 

2.  "  The  patient  may  be  in  a  state  of  moral  insanity,  where  there  are 
no  delusions,  and  the  chief  symptom  is  an  alteration  and  degradation  of 
character.  In  these  cases  the  stage  of  delusion  has  either  not  been  reached 
or  has  been  transitory  and  ephemeral,  leaving  the  patient  half-cured. 

3.  "  There  is  the  imbecile  class.  These  weak-minded  persons  are 
given  to  thievery  as  they  are  to  lying,  drinking,  and  low  associations.  In 
the  lower  station  of  life  such  thefts  lead  to  the  prison ;  in  the  higher  they 
come  under  our  notice,  and  much  care  is  required  in  diagnosis. 

"  We  read  of  ladies  appropriating  articles  in  shops,  and  pregnant 
women  whose  longings  lead  them  to  thefts,  but  such  are  not  insane — 
they  are  people  of  weak  or  ill-regulated  minds.  The  plea  of  insanity 
cannot  be  raised  unless  other  symptoms  exist  or  develop  later." 

Observation  of  kleptomaniacs,  real  and  alleged,  shows  that 
some  kleptomania  neuropaths,  who  find  that  their  kleptomania 
has  attracted  attention,  seem  to  take  especial  pride  in  stealing  and 
boasting  of  their  predilection  as  of  an  accomplishment.  The 
suggestion  of  inability  to  resist  temptation  sometimes  made  by 
prison  or  asylum  officials  may  cause  the  ordinary  thief  to  assume 
kleptomania.     The  insane  may  really  acquire  it  by  suggestion. 

"  Twentieth  Century  Practice,  vol,  xii. 


176  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

The  more  closely  kleptomania  and  its  simulations  are  studied, 
the  more  wide-spread  disregard  of  property  rights  will  be  found 
to  be.  The  weakness  of  human  nature  in  the  direction  of  theft 
and  swindling  is  most  evident  at  the  two  extremes  of  such  crimes, 
— i.e.,  petty  thefts  and  big  thefts.  Persons  who  would  be  horri- 
fied were  they  to  be  called  thieves  and  swindlers  will  misappro- 
priate certain  articles  without  a  tremor  of  conscience.  The  stolen 
umbrella  has  been  a  joke  for  so  long  that  the  memory  of  man 
runneth  not  to  the  contrary.  The  pompous  business  man  and  the 
lady  in  the  sealskin  sacque  consider  it  smart  to  beat  the  street-car 
company  out  of  a  nickel ;  the  conductor  who  "  holds  out"  on  the 
railroad  company  is  regarded  with  a  certain  degree  of  approba- 
tion, and  when  he  builds  a  house  for  himself  out  of  his  small 
salary  his  neighbors  smile  benignantly ;  the  alderman  pockets  his 
bribe,  and  the  public  "  winks  the  other  eye ;"  the  promoter  with 
his  fake  enterprises  plucks  his  pigeons  right  and  left ;  the  pusil- 
lanimous sport  bets  his  money  on  the  safe  side  of  a  fixed  race  or 
prize  fight ;  the  wealthy  corporation  waters  its  stock  or  gets  a 
fraudulent  franchise  and  swindles  the  public  out  of  millions ;  the 
inside  man  wrecks  an  insurance  company  and  amasses  a  fortune ; 
the  would-be  fashionable  defrauds  his  doctor,  his  tailor,  his  wife's 
dressmaker,  his  butcher  and  grocer ;  men  and  women  who  are 
able  to  pay  fees  patronize  charity  hospitals  and  dispensaries, — ■ 
and  so  the  game  of  theft  without  crime  or  loss  of  social  prestige 
goes  merrily  on. 

The  standard  of  honesty  by  which  some  supposedly  respect- 
able people  gauge  their  actions  is  as  elastic  as  India-rubber ;  their 
system  of  ethics  is  for  the  guidance  of  the  other  fellow.  The 
hotel-  and  restaurant-keepers  know  this  to  their  cost.  Spoons, 
towels,  napkins,  hair-brushes,  combs, — these  things,  like  the  um- 
brella, seem  to  be  stamped  pro  bono  publico.  The  pretext  of 
souvenir-collecting  covers  up  much  thievery  and  vandalism. 
Women  are  the  chief  oflFenders.  And  it  is  by  no  means  among 
the  less-cultured  classes  that  light-fingered  habits  prevail.  On 
the  contrary,  the  ultra-fashionable  set — as  might  be  expected 
from  the  high  average  of  degeneracy  it  exhibits — is  far  less 
honest  than  the  poorer  classes.     The  detective  in  civilian  dress 


NEUROSES  IN  RELATION  TO  SOCIAL  DISEASES    177 

who  mingles  with  the  guests  at  a  reception,  or  stands  con- 
veniently near  the  display  of  gifts  at  the  fashionable  wedding,  is 
evidence  enough  of  the  truth  of  what  I  have  said.  The  plea  that 
uninvited  persons  must  be  guarded  against  deceives  no  one 
familiar  with  the  facts. 

That  women  are  more  given  to  petty  thievery  than  men  will 
be  testified  to  by  almost  any  intelligent  woman  who  has  noticed 
the  frequency  with  which  articles  of  value  disappear  from  the 
dressing-  and  cloak-rooms  at  fashionable  functions.  The  woman 
who  has  her  sealskin  surreptitiously  exchanged  for  an  inferior 
garment,  or  stolen  outright,  is  likely  to  have  some  very  decided 
opinions  on  the  subject.  There  are  few  women  who  do  not  know 
that  only  the  green  and  inexperienced  of  their  sex  leave  small 
change  and  expensive  handkerchiefs  in  the  pockets  of  their 
wraps.  Rarely,  indeed,  are  they  stolen  by  the  attendants ;  only 
too  frequently  are  they  appropriated  by  the  guests.  While  the 
loss  of  articles  from  men's  dressing-rooms  at  social  functions  is 
by  no  means  unknown,  it  is  rare  as  compared  with  losses  among 
women  under  similar  circumstances. 

The  fact  that  the  proprietors  of  large  city  stores  have  a 
regular  profit  and  loss  charge  against  stealing,  a  certain  by  no 
means  insignificant  percentage  of  loss  by  theft  being  expected 
every  year,  is  in  itself  illustrative  of  the  wide-spread  tendency  to 
yield  to  the  temptation  to  steal,  especially  on  the  part  of  women, 
in  whom  the  conception  of  property  rights  is  so  often  primitive  or 
childish. 

In  view  of  the  facts  above  set  forth,  the  conviction  and  im- 
prisonment of  a  large  proportion  of  petty  thieves,  who  chance  to 
be  caught  red-handed  while  stealing  to  live,  seems  a  social 
satire,  and  the  acme  of  unjust  discrimination.  At  the  very  least, 
it  should  incline  sweet  Charity  to  broaden  her  mantle. 

THE   RELATION    OF   THE    CEREBELLUM    TO    SOCL\L   DISEASE 

The  relation  of  the  cerebellum  to  the  faculties  of  the  mind  is 
somewhat  obscure ;  its  physiologic  functions  are  not  scientificall\- 
well  defined.  There  is  considerable  evidence,  however,  to  show 
that  defective  or  excessive  development,  disease,  or  trauiiKitisni 

12 


178  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

of  the  cerebellum  produces  a  profound  disturbance  of  the  morale 
of  the  subject.  Inasmuch  as  the  indications  point  to  this  portion 
of  the  brain  as  having  a  distinctly  sexual  function,  it  is  not  sur- 
prising that  various  lesions  affecting  it  should  be  associated  with 
moral  lapses  revolving  around  the  sexual  instinct, — i.e.,  with 
sexual  vice  and  crime.  Gall  located  the  centre  of  sexual  desire 
in  the  cerebellum,  and  his  views  have  since  been  corroborated  by 
many  observers.  Nothnagel,  while  looking  in  the  direction  of 
the  cerebellum  for  the  seat  of  sexual  desire,  localized  it  in  a  more 
limited  area  than  did  Gall,  claiming  that  it  was  restricted  to  the 
vermiform  process.  It  will  be  noted  that  the  faculty  of  affection 
was  located  by  Gall  in  the  occipital  lobes.  He  thus  made  a  dis- 
tinction between  the  affections,  around  which  centre  friendship 
and  the  domestic  instincts,  and  mere  sexual  desire.  The  evidence 
goes  to  show  that  the  nobler  emotions  of  love,  while  influenced 
by  the  cerebellum,  depend  upon  the  functional  integrity  of  the 
occipital  lobes,  on  the  one  hand,  and  a  proper  balance  between 
these  lobes  and  the  cerebellum,  upon  the  other.  Sexuality  ema- 
nating from  the  cerebellum,  ennobled  and  refined  by  the  faculties 
of  the  posterior  cerebral  lobes  and  controlled  by  the  intellectual 
faculties  of  the  frontal  lobes,  may  be  said  to  constitute  the  sex 
attraction  of  normal  civilized  man.  A  loss  of  balance  anvwhere 
in  the  chain  may,  by  excess  of  function,  on  the  one  hand,  or  lack 
of  inhibition,  on  the  other,  give  rise  to  sexual  abnormalities  and 
oiTences. 

Women  are  relatively  dolichocephalic  or  long-headed.  This 
cranial  characteristic  has  been  found  to  be  indicative  of  a 
greater  capacity  for  affection,  and  implies  a  superior  occipital 
development.  That  they  are  more  affectionate,  less  intel- 
lectual, and  more  emotional  than  men  is  a  matter  of  common 
knowledge. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  the  similarity  of  Gall's  and  Lom- 
broso's  observations.  The  former  claimed  that  women  who 
commit  infanticide  have  a  defective  posterior  brain  development. 
The  latter  asserts  that  female  criminals  have  no  love  for  their 
offspring,  even  where  sexual  passion  is  exaggerated,  and  that 
they  have  short  occiputs — brachycephaly.     Benedikt's  observa- 


NEUROSES  IN  RELATION  TO  SOCIAL  DISEASES    179 

tions  have  a  similar  trend.  He  found  in  the  brains  of  a  series  of 
murderers  defective  occipital  lobes. 

The  close  association  of  the  emotions  and  the  sense  of  sight, 
which  is  located  in  the  occipital  lobes,  is  self-evident.  The  in- 
fluence of  sight  upon  sexual  attraction  is  well-known.  Admitting 
that  the  occipital  lobes  are  the  seat  of  the  optic  sense,  there  is  an 
apparent  contradiction  in  the  fact  that  visual  sexual  attraction  is 
much  stronger  in  men  than  in  women.  The  sexual  impressions 
made  upon  the  optic  centre,  however,  are  passed  on  to  the  cere- 
bellum, and  it  is  the  relative  development  of  this  organ,  not  of 
the  posterior  cerebral  lobes,  that  determines  the  degree  of  sex- 
uality. Men  have  a  greater  cerebellar  development  than  women, 
consequently  more  powerful  sexual  impulses.  It  has  been  noted 
that  men  whose  cerebellar  development  is  extreme — a  mark  of 
atavism — are  likely  to  be  the  victims  of  inordinate  sexual  desire. 
Where  the  cerebellum  is  undeveloped,  sexual  desire  is  relatively 
weak.  Women  with  large  cerebellar  development  approximate 
the  male  in  sexual  desire.  From  such  defectives  "  born  prosti- 
tutes" are  recruited. 

Lombroso  ^^  says  that  "  female  criminals,  who  have  a  large 
cerebellar  development,  have  no  chastity."  There  is  a  source  of 
fallacy  here.  I  deny  that  the  female  criminal  whom  Lombroso 
has  studied  is  a  fair  criterion  of  her  American  sister.  I  also  deny 
that  all  female  criminals  have  a  large  cerebellar  development.  If 
the  premise  be  correct  that  prostitution  is  the  correlative  of  crime, 
the  existence  of  great  cerebellar  development  should  lead  to 
prostitution  rather  than  criminality  as  an  occupation.  Indeed,  it 
is  not  difficult  to  show  that  prostitution  acts  vicariously  with 
crime.  My  observation  has  been  that  the  better  class  of  criminal 
female  is  often  sexually  moral  and  a  loyal  and  devoted  wife  or 
lover ;  even  discounting  the  control  element  of  the  fear  that  the 
female  consort  of  the  male  criminal  is  likely  to  have  of  physical 
punishment  for  faithlessness.  Many  women  see  no  immorality  in 
stealing,  lying,  or  swindling,  yet  abhor  a  lack  of  virtue.  Such 
examples  prove  that,  while  prostitution  and  crime  are  correla- 

"^  The  Female  Offender. 


i8o  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

tives,  they  are  not  morally  identical.  Were  thievery  indicative  of 
prostitution,  there  would  be  no  difficulty  in  classifying  a  certain 
proportion  of  "  respectable"  women. 

The  muscular  co-ordination  function  of  the  cerebellum  has 
been  advanced  as  an  argument  against  its  sexual  function.  This 
is  far-fetched,  for  there  is  nothing  illogical  in  the  assumption  that 
the  organ  has  several  functions.  In  any  event,  the  muscle  func- 
tion of  the  cerebellum  cannot  be  altogether  dissociated  from  its 
sexual  function.  The  venereal  orgasm  is  not  a  local  phenomenon, 
but  involves  a  general  spasm  of  the  muscular  system.  It  is 
worthy  of  comment  that  both  disease  of  the  cerebellum  and  sexual 
excess  produce  neurasthenia. 

Hollander  -^  claims  that  the  relative  size  of  the  cerebellum  is 
indicated  by  a  corresponding  conformation  of  the  skull.  He  lays 
stress  upon  the  width  of  the  head  between  the  mastoid  processes 
as  a  criterion  of  the  curvature — i.e.,  the  depth — of  the  occipital  or 
cerebellar  fossae  of  the  skull.  He  asserts  that  this  measurement  is 
an  accurate  criterion  of  the  intensity  of  the  libido  scxualis  in  a 
given  subject. 

Notwithstanding  the  conflicting  observations  and  experiments 
regarding  the  sexual  function  of  the  cerebellum,  certain  clinical 
facts  support  the  view  that  the  organ  is  at  least  an  important 
physiologic  factor  in  sexual  desire.  Satyriasis,  homicidal  mania 
with  morbid  sexual  impulses,  rape,  and  persistent  priapism  have 
been  noted  in  injuries,  tumors,  and  excessive  development  of  the 
cerebellum.  Impotency  has  also  resulted  from  injury  of  the 
organ.  Baron  Larrey  ^*  reported  a  case  in  which,  associated  with 
impotency,  atrophy  of  the  testes  resulted  from  cerebellar  injuries. 
A  very  interesting  case  was  reported  by  Bennet.^^  A  girl,  six 
years  of  age,  presented  a  tumor  projecting  through  the  cranial 
wall  at  the  lower  posterior  part  of  the  skull.  At  the  age  of 
eleven  years  inordinate  sexual  desire  developed.  Death  occurred 
suddenly  six  years  later.  The  tumor  was  found  to  be  an 
enormously  developed  cerebellum,  protruding  through  a  defect  in 
the  cranium, 

"Op.  cit.  **0n  Wounds.         "Gazette  Medicale,   1834. 


NEUROSES  IN  RELATION  TO  SOCIAL  DISEASES    i8i 


THE    CRIMINAL    BRAIN 

Our  knowledge  of  the  normal  and  pathologic  anatomy  of  the 
criminal  brain  is  as  yet  crude  and  imperfect.  Much  of  the  work 
that  has  been  done  has  been  upon  insane  criminals,  in  whom  the 
brain  lesions  were  in  no  wise  different  from  those  of  other  insane. 
Little  effort  has  been  made  to  co-ordinate  psychoses  noted  in  the 
living  criminal  with  special  lesions  of  the  brain  by  subsequent 
post-mortem  study,  or  at  least  to  prove  their  relation  by  a  suffi- 
ciently large  number  of  observations.  It  is  obvious  that  the 
co-existence  of  psychoses  with  cranial  and  brain  defects  does  not 
necessarily  prove  the  causal  relation  of  the  one  to  the  other.  It 
is  evident  also  that  a  much  larger  number  of  observations  would 
be  required  to  prove  their  relations  than  it  has  yet  been  prac- 
ticable to  obtain.  In  no  field  of  medicine  is  investigation  so 
difficult ;  in  no  department  of  research  is  so  much  time  and  skill 
required  for  comparative  studies. 

Among  the  criminal  insane,  especially,  coarse  brain  and  men- 
ingeal disease  has  been  found.  In  a  series  of  ninety-two  au- 
topsies of  criminals,  Lombroso  ^®  reports  the  following  brain 
lesions, — viz. :  Meningeal  opacities  and  adhesions,  3  ;  slight  ossi- 
fications in  various  parts  of  the  brain,  3  ;  osteoma,  i ;  softening, 
2  ;  hemorrhagic  points,  5  ;  arterial  degeneration,  4 ;  tumors,  3 ; 
adhesion  of  posterior  horns,  i  ;  hemorrhage  into  the  lateral 
ventricles,  2 ;  cerebral  and  cerebellar  abscesses,  2. 

Flesch  "  examined  the  brains  of  fifty  criminals,  and  found 
abnormalities  or  anomalies  in  all.  In  twenty-eight  he  found,  in 
different  cases,  meningeal  disease,  such  as  adhesions, pachymenin- 
gitis interna  hemorrhagica,  tubercular  meningitis,  leptomeningitis, 
edema  of  the  pia  mater,  and  hemorrhagic  spinal  meningitis  ;  also 
atheroma  of  the  basilary  arteries,  cortical  atrophy,  and  cerebral 
hemorrhage.  In  most  cases  the  pathologic  conditions  were  not 
associated  with  the  psychoses  that  are  usually  found  under  such 
circumstances. 

"  L'Homme  Criminel. 

"  Untersuchungen  iibcr  Verbrecher  Gehirne. 


1 82  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

Benedikt,  in  a  series  of  nineteen  criminal  brains,  found  a 
deficient  brain-substance  and  confluence  of  the  fissures,  the  three 
most  important  fissures — the  central,  third  frontal,  and  parietal — 
tending  to  unite  with  the  Sylvian.  In  general,  the  conformation 
of  the  criminal  brain  is  of  the  relatively  simple  type  observed  in 
the  negro  and  other  primitive  races, 

Benedikt  says,  quite  logically,  "  To  suppose  that  an  atypically 
constructed  brain  can  functionate  normally  is  out  of  the  question." 
Granting  the  accuracy  of  Benedikt's  observations  and  the  correct- 
ness of  his  conclusions,  it  still  remains  to  be  shown  that  the  brain 
of  the  criminal  is  more  primitive  and  simple  than  that  of  other 
individuals  of  the  same  race,  station  in  life,  general  physical  de- 
velopment, and  facilities  for  educational  training.  With  regard 
to  coarse  brain  disease  in  criminal  brains,  the  lesions  found  bear 
no  arbitrary  relation  to  criminality,  for  the  reason  that  a  pre- 
viously normal  individual,  so  far  as  morality  is  concerned,  might 
develop  criminal  tendencies  from  such  conditions.  It  must  be 
admitted  also  that  such  conditions  may  develop  and  produce  in- 
sanity or  psychic  aberrations  without  the  slightest  immoral  or 
criminal  tendency. 

Roncorini  has  found  in  criminals  of  the  congenital  type  and 
in  epileptics  absence  of  the  internal  granular  layer  of  the  cerebral 
cortex,  an  exaggerated  size  and  scarcity  of  the  large  pyramidal 
cells,  and  the  presence  of  nerve-cells  in  the  white  matter,  as  in 
the  Gallinaceae. 

The  weight  of  the  criminal  brain  has  been  the  subject  of  much 
controversy.  That  it  is  less,  on  the  average,  than  that  of  the 
educated  classes  seems  to  be  well-established.  That  it  is  less  than 
that  of  the  non-criminal  of  the  same  degree  of  mental  training 
has  not  been  shown;  nor  is  there  any  logical  reason  why  it 
should  be  less. 

Despite  the  scant  and  conflicting  testimony  of  cerebrologists 
with  reference  to  the  brain  defects  of  criminals,  there  is  so  much 
clinical  evidence  of  the  aberration  of  morals  and  conduct  from 
brain  disease  or  injury  that  we  are  justified  in  believing  that  brain 
defect  of  some  kind  affecting  the  mental  and  moral  faculties  is 
the  fons  origo  of  criminality.    This  defect,  as  already  seen,  may 


NEUROSES  IN  RELATION  TO  SOCIAL  DISEASES    183 

be  congenital  or  acquired,  and  may  consist  of  a  lack  of  develop- 
ment due  to  vicious  environment  and  faulty  education,  mental 
and  physical. 

It  is  difficult  to  dissociate  Gall's  view  that  the  fundamental 
sentiments  and  affections  have  separate  centres  in  the  brain,  from 
the  known  clinical  facts  in  psychoses,  criminal  and  non-criminal. 
His  contention  is  obviously  difficult  of  proof,  but  sufficient  data 
are  at  hand  to  lend  a  color  of  probability  to  his  theory,  and,  if  the 
time  ever  arrives  when  a  favorable  and  intelligent  public  senti- 
ment shall  enable  us  to  procure  material  sufficient  for  thorough 
research,  he  may  one  day  be  ranked  as  one  of  the  immortals  of 
science,  who  was  misunderstood  and  unappreciated  because  so 
far  ahead  of  his  time.  Possibly  phrenology  has  within  it  more 
than  we  have  been  willing  to  admit.  When  so  great  a  thinker  as 
Herbert  Spencer  sees  much  of  truth  in  phrenology, — and,  for- 
sooth, assimilates  its  principles,  often  without  acknowledgment, 
— it  is  hardly  becoming  in  authors  of  less  mentality  to  discard  it 
in  toto,  "without  even  a  hearing.  Many  of  our  modern  alienists 
and  psychologists  have  a  phrenologic  bias,  perhaps  without 
realizing  it  themselves.  Ferrier,  Voisin,  and  Flechsig  have  a 
distinct  leaning  in  that  direction.  Hollander  has  done  a  great 
work  in  bringing  together  the  clinical  evidences  of  refinement  in 
cerebral  localization,  and  in  giving  Gall  a  portion  at  least  of  the 
credit  due  him  as  a  pioneer  in  psychology  and  brain  pathology 
and  localization. 

THE    NECESSITY    FOR    LABORATORY    STUDY   OF   DEFECTIVES 

In  how  far  the  general  principles  of  cerebrology  and  crani- 
ology  will  eventually  be  proved  by  the  study  of  degenerate  brains 
and  skulls  is  open  to  question.  The  State  offers  at  present  very 
meagre  facilities  for  study,  even  of  the  insane.  The  State,  if 
public  sentiment  would  permit  it,  could  do  a  great  work  in  the 
study  of  anthropology,  by  permitting  unlimited  facilities  for 
clinical,  autopsical,  and  laboratory  research.  Every  public  insti- 
tution should  have  up-to-date  facilities  for  scientific  research,  and 
up-to-date  men  to  conduct  it.  With  full  consciousness  of  the 
enormity  of  the  offence  in  the  eyes  of  sentimentalists,   T  will 


i84  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

suggest  that,  where  the  consent  of  condemned  criminals  can  be 
obtained,  experimentation  in  vivo  should  be  made.  The  State 
might  provide  bounties  for  criminals  who  shall  consent  to  submit 
themselves  to  scientific  experimentation.  Submission  to  observa- 
tion and  study  should  be  made  compulsory  in  every  penal 
institution. 

If  there  be  any  merit  in  repression  of  crime  through  fear  of 
consequences,  the  legal  assignment  of  condemned  murderers  to 
a  scientific  laboratory  for  experimental  observation  might  not  be 
ineffectual,  although,  were  the  truth  known,  the  prospect  of  the 
scientist's  scalpel  and  inoculation  syringe,  used  with  the  precau- 
tions most  scientists  employ  in  animal  experimentation,  would  be 
pleasing,  in  contrast  with  the  noose  or  electric  chair.  I  have  seen 
several  murderers  slowly  strangled  to  death  on  the  gallows.  In 
a  recent  case  of  electrocution,  five  separate  and  distinct  shocks 
were  required  to  kill  the  miserable  wretch. 

Sentiment  aside,  there  are  numerous  observations  and  experi- 
ments, to  which  no  one  of  well-balanced  intellect  should  take 
exception,  that  might  be  made  in  a  proper  laboratory.  The 
proposition  of  the  distinguished  criminologist,  Mr.  Arthur  Mac- 
Donald,  to  establish  a  National  Laboratory  for  the  study  of 
degeneracy  was  a  step  in  the  right  direction,  but  not  the  proper 
way  to  set  about  the  furtherment  of  scientific  research.^*  What 
is  needed  is  individual  laboratories  in  all  our  large  public  institu- 
tions. Until  pathologists,  at  least,  have  been  provided  for  our 
prisons  and  asylums,  a  National  Laboratory  will  be  an  enthusi- 
ast's dream,  albeit  not  an  idle  one.  The  State  should  begin  work 
at  the  bottom. 


HYSTERIA   IN    ITS   RELATIONS   TO   ANTISOCIAL   ACTS 

Hysteria  is  apparently  not  often  either  a  cause  or  a  result  of 
crime.  It  is  exceptionally  found  among  criminals.  Salsatto  found 
it  to  exist  in  a  very  small  percentage  only  of  the  graver  types  of 


"  A  Bill  to  establish  a  Laboratory  for  the  Study  of  the  Criminal, 
Pauper,  and  Defective  Classes.    Senate  Doc.  400.    Fifty-seventh  Session. 


NEUROSES  IN  RELATION  TO  SOCIAL  DISEASES    185 

Italian  female  offenders.  Lombroso  says  that  in  the  prison  of 
Turin  it  exists  in  3.9  per  cent,  of  the  inmates.  Even  these  figures 
are  fallacious,  so  far  as  establishing  hysteria  as  an  etiologic 
factor  in  crime  is  concerned.  In  the  larger  portion  of  criminal 
hysterics  the  neurosis  is  probably  acquired  incidentally  in  their 
careers.  Hysteria  is  probably  somewhat  more  prevalent  among 
American  female  criminals,  especially  among  the  native-born, 
than  among  European.  While  no  statistics  are  available  on  this 
point,  hysteria  has  not  been  markedly  infrequent  in  criminals 
coming  under  my  observation,  although  less  frequent  than  in 
normal  women.  The  American  criminal  female  partakes  of  the 
nervous  constitution  of  her  more  fortunate  sisters,  but  she  is 
coarser-grained  and  therefore  not  so  subject  to  hysteria. 

Tarnowsky  found  but  fifteen  per  cent,  of  hysterics  among 
prostitutes.  Even  this  is  a  high  estimate,  from  the  American 
stand-point.  In  the  vulgar,  besotted  lower-class  prostitute  hys- 
teria is  not  to  be  expected  ;  in  the  better  class  of  public  women  the 
excitement  and  carousal  of  their  lives  is  an  outlet  for  nerve- 
storms  that  prevents  hysteria, — acting,  in  short,  vicariously 
with  it. 

Hysterics  are  notoriously  unstable  of  nervous  equilibrium,  the 
will  being  especially  weak  and  vacillating ;  they  are  easily  moved 
to  anger,  perhaps  even  to  ferocity,  and  grief;  their  excessive 
egotism  and  introspection  excites  in  them  a  love  of  the  sensational 
and  scandalous.^^ 

Hysterical  women  often  bring  false  accusations  of  crime 
against  others.  The  victim  is  generally  a  man,  and  the  alleged 
crime,  assault.  Physicians  recognize  this  as  one  of  the  dangers 
to  be  guarded  against  in  their  work.  Hysterical  women  in  the 
primary  stage  of  anesthesia  sometimes  imagine  themselves  the 
victims  of  assault.  In  one  well-known  case  the  woman  accused 
a  dentist  of  assault  while  he  was  administering  nitrous  oxide  to 
her.  Her  husband  was  in  the  room  during  the  imaginary  assault. 
A  few  years  since  five  respectable  young  men  in  a  Western  town 
were  accused  by  a  young  woman  of  having  successively  assaulted 


Lombroso,  op.  cit. 


i86  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

her.  An  attempt  was  made  to  lynch  the  accused,  which  ahnost 
succeeded.  At  the  trial  it  was  proved  that  the  woman  was  an 
hysteric  who  had  been  insane  and  in  an  asylum,  and,  most 
important  of  all,  that  she  was  virgo  intacta. 

Sexual  transgressions  are  frequent  in  hysterics,  largely  be- 
cause of  sudden,  transitory  impulse,  rather  than  inordinate  desire. 
There  are,  however,  notable  exceptions  to  this  rule,  in  which  the 
desire  is  nymphomaniacal.  Hysterical  subjects  are  not  prone  to 
suicide,  although  much  given  to  threats  and  theatrical  simulations 
of  its  performance.  In  some  of  the  cases  where  the  hysteric 
actually  carries  her  threat  into  execution,  she  is  the  victim  of 
over-zealous  acting;  her  histrionic  efforts  are  attended  by  a 
realism  that  is  unintentional.  In  other  cases  the  hysteric  destroys 
her  own  life  under  the  influence  of  a  sudden  erratic  impulse,  or 
in  response  to  the  suggestion  afforded  by  similar  acts  by  others. 

Certain  hysterics  have  a  singular  penchant  for  anonymous 
letter- writing.  Sometimes  the  letters  are  self-addressed,  but  they 
are  usually  addressed  to  another  person.  These  letters  often  con- 
tain accusations  of  immorality.  They  are  especially  likely  to  do 
so  if  the  writer  is  dominated  by  eroticism.  In  verbal  or  written 
accusations  of  assault,  under  such  conditions,  the  wish  is  not 
seldom  father  to  the  thought.  It  is  probable  that  certain  subjects 
actually  believe  in  their  accusations,  so  powerful  is  the  sexual 
autosuggestion. 

Lombroso  ^^  says  that  "  the  impulses  of  hysterical  women  are 
like  those  of  big  children ;  they  would  accomplish  greater  evil 
than  they  do,  did  they  not  lack  the  strength  for  its  accomplish- 
ment." It  is  probably  not  because  of  a  lack  of  physical  strength 
that  they  do  not  oftener  commit  more  atrocious  crimes,  but 
because  they  are  vacillating  in  will,  and  their  impulses  fitful 
and  transitory,  changing  in  rapid  succession.  As  Lombroso 
remarks,  however,  the  exceptional  hysteric  may  commit  enor- 
mous and  varied  crimes,  showing  a  criminality  more  terrible 
than  man's. 

A  favorite  crime  among  hysterical  women  is  poisoning,  or 

-Op.  cit. 


NEUROSES  IN  RELATION  TO  SOCIAL  DISEASES    187 

attempts  at  poisoning.  They  sometimes  do  the  work  very 
cleverly,  and  either  escape  detection  or  even  suspicion,  or,  when 
accused,  invent  so  clever  a  defence  that  they  escape  paying  the 
penalty  of  their  crimes.  Cases  are  known  in  which  experimenta- 
tion with  poison  upon  people  who  had  in  no  wise  ofifended  the 
murderess  seemed  to  have  a  peculiar  fascination  for  her. 

The  especial  danger  of  criminality  in  hysterics  is  their  suscep- 
tibility to  suggestion  and  hypnotism.  This  may  come  through 
interested  individuals,  or  by  autosuggestion.  It  is  probable  that 
autosuggestion  has  more  to  do  with  the  immoral  conduct  of 
hysterics  than  is  generally  supposed.  The  lie  of  the  hysterical 
woman  is  not  always  a  lie,  for  by  autosuggestion  she  may  come  to 
believe  it  herself. 

SUICIDE 

Suicide  is  perhaps  more  intimately  associated  with  insanity 
than  is  any  other  antisocial  act.  Its  prevalence  is  one  of  the 
most  convincing  proofs  of  the  fact  that  under  present  conditions 
a  certain  rather  constant  percentage  of  degeneracy  is  to  be 
counted  on  in  every  social  system.  Long  before  degeneracy  was 
talked  of  as  the  foundation  of  social  disease,  sociologists  recog- 
nized that  a  certain  ratio  of  suicides  was  inevitable.  Buckle  ^^ 
and  others  attributed  this  to  an  occult  law  controlling  the  moral 
world,  as  arbitrary  and  remorseless  as  the  laws  controlling  the 
physical  world.  It  was  claimed  that  this  moral  law,  like  me- 
chanical laws,  could  be  modified  by  accidental  disturbances  but 
not  abrogated.    Buckle  says, — 


"  In  a  given  state  of  society  a  certain  number  of  persons  must  put 
an  end  to  their  own  lives.  This  is  the  general  law,  and  the  special 
question  as  to  who  shall  commit  the  crime  depends,  of  course,  upon 
special  laws,  which,  however,  in  their  total  action,  must  obey  the  large 
social  law  to  which  they  are  all  subordinate.  The  power  of  the  larger 
law  is  so  irresistible  that  neither  the  love  of  life  nor  the  fear  of  another 
world  can  avail  anything  towards  even  checking  its  operations." 


**  History  of  Civilization  in  England. 


i88  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

Buckle  further  shows  by  statistics  that,  notwithstanding  the 
varying  causes  of  suicide  which  exist  in  society,  such  as  political 
excitement,  want,  mercantile  crises,  disappointments  in  love,  de- 
pression induced  by  disease,  etc.,  there  had  been  in  London  a  very 
constant  average  of  suicides,  the  average  having  been  during  five 
years  two  hundred  and  forty  per  year.  The  variation  in  the  num- 
ber was  not  very  great  in  proportion  to  the  number  of  population, 
running  from  two  hundred  and  thirteen  to  two  hundred  and 
sixty-six,  the  latter  number  being  attained  in  the  year  1846,  dis- 
tinguished by  the  great  railway  panic.  At  this  time  the  ratio  of 
suicides  might  naturally  have  been  expected  to  be  extremely  high, 
but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  was  less  than  one-half  per  cent,  higher 
than  the  preceding  year.  "  Mechanical  laws,"  says  Buckle,  "  may 
be  disturbed  by  accidental  disturbances,  yet  they  prevail ;  so  it  is 
with  moral  law." 

Recent  history  has  shown  the  fallacy  of  Buckle's  deductions 
as  to  the  constancy  of  the  ratio  of  suicides  in  a  given  social  sys- 
tem. The  source  of  error  probably  lay  in  the  relative  fixity  of 
European  social  systems  as  compared  with  newer  ones.  What- 
ever the  explanation,  the  fact  remains  that  with  increasing  de- 
generacy an  increase  in  the  proportion  of  suicides  and  antisocial 
acts  in  general  is  to  be  expected.  In  this  country  the  numerical 
increase  has  been  a  little  over  thirty-three  and  one-third  per  cent. 
in  the  last  ten  years.  Statistics  bearing  upon  suicide,  especially, 
must  take  all  the  environmental  conditions  into  consideration. 
Thus,  in  one  of  our  large  Western  cities,  St.  Louis,  the  percentage 
of  suicides  is  nearly  double  that  of  the  country  at  large.^^ 

The  total  number  of  deaths  in  the  United  States  due  to  suicide 
during  the  census  year  1900  was  5498,  of  which  4313  were  males 
and  1 185  females.  The  proportion  of  deaths  from  this  cause  in 
one  thousand  deaths  from  all  known  causes  was  5.5.  In  1890  the 
corresponding  proportion  was  4.5.  These  statistics  treat  deaths 
from  suicide  collectively.  The  following  is  a  statement  in  detail, 
which  is  authentic  so  far  as  it  is  possible  to  collect  the  data. 


Vide  paper  of  Frederick  L.  Hoffman  in  the  London  Spectator. 


NEUROSES  IN  RELATION  TO  SOCIAL  DISEASES  189 

Obviously,  the  sum-total   must  be  greater  than   these   figures 
show.     Many  suicides  are  of  course  concealed. 

The  number  of  suicides  in  1904  was  9240,  as  against  5340  in 
1899. 


Method  of  Suicide. 

Entire  United  States. 

Registration  Area. 

Males. 

Females. 

Males. 

Females. 

Drowning 

Poison 

Sliooting 

Other  means 

157 
761 

llyO 
2205 

84 
464 

103 
534 

112 

551 
764 
1203 

5a 
364 

53 
301 

Recent  statistics  show  that  the  ratio  of  female  to  male  suicides  is  increasing. 

The  present  attitude  of  science  as  to  the  degeneration  etiology 
of  social  disease  in  general  is  peculiarly  applicable  to  suicide. 
Statistics  proving  the  steadily  increasing  ratio  of  suicides  in  the 
United  States  also  prove  that  the  causes  of  degeneracy  in  gen- 
eral are  peculiarly  active  and  potent  in  this  country. 

The  nerve-racking  strain  and  tension  of  modern  civilization  is 
nowhere  so  powerful  as  in  America.  The  struggle  for  supremacy 
in  the  pursuit  of  fame  and  dollars,  conjoined  with  the  enormous 
artificial  necessities,  increasing  fixed  charges  of  existence,  and 
industrial  disturbances  of  the  country,  entails  a  fearful  burden  of 
expenditure  of  nerve  energy.  The  man  who  gets  enormously 
rich,  does  so  not  only  at  the  expense  of  his  fellow-man,  but  also 
at  the  expense  of  his  own  nervous  system.  The  noiivcau  riclie 
is  a  distinctively  American  product.  Only  the  wise  can  stand 
prosperity;  the  porcine  multimillionaire  is  usually  neither  wise 
nor  intellectual,  albeit  he  is  crafty.  His  hot-house  bred  children 
are  degenerate  branches  of  a  rotten  tree.  If  the  plutocrat  himself 
does  not  play  the  fool  with  his  money,  it  is  because  he  has  not 
time  to  both  make  and  spend  it,  and,  besides,  his  constant  pursuit 
of  the  dollar  has  become  a  monomania.  He  has  no  longer  ca- 
pacity for  thrills  not  stamped  with  the  dollar-mark.  But  his  chil- 
dren— they  compensate  for  their  father's  avarice  phase  of  degen- 
eracy by  profligacy,  gross  immorality,  and  perhaps  crime.  Tlie 
American  Order  of  the  Golden  Pig  is  often  a  fatal  inhcritaiTcc. 


190  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

It  has  been  regarded  as  peculiar  that  suicide  and  general 
prosperity  should  be  coeval,  but  the  explanation  is  simple  enough. 
With  the  possession  of  great  wealth  comes  a  departure  from 
simple  and  healthful  habits  of  living.  The  earning  of  much 
money  means  the  expenditure  of  much  force.  The  possession  of 
money  by  men  of  undisciplined  minds,  leaving  out  of  considera- 
tion the  money  monomaniac,  means  the  pursuit  of  new  thrills,  the 
capture  of  which  brings  satiety  and  nerve-degeneracy  in  its  train. 
Satiety  breeds  that  "  world  weariness"  and  discontent  which 
make  life  intolerable,  and  then — suicide. 

Certain  determining  factors  in  the  etiology  of  suicide  must 
always  be  taken  into  consideration.  Chief  among  these  are  too 
intense  mental  and  physical  strain,  the  greed  and  excitement  of 
speculation,  alcoholism,  morbid  literature  and  plays,  financial  dis- 
appointments and  disasters,  disappointed  hopes  and  ambitions  of 
all  kinds,  grief,  thwarted  love,  jealousy,  physical  suffering,  do- 
mestic misery,  suggestive  newspaper  accounts  of  self-murders, 
and  true  insanity.  Behind  the  majority  of  cases  is  a  varying  and 
often  unknown  degree  of  neuropsychic  degeneracy. 

A  recent  magazine  editorial  has  descanted  on  a  special  race 
factor  in  suicide,  as  follows :  ^^ 

"  The  population  of  the  United  States  contains  a  large  percentage 
of  people  of  Teutonic  origin.  It  is  well  known  that  the  Germans  and 
Scandinavians,  and,  to  a  minor  degree,  the  Anglo-Saxon  branch  of  the 
Teutonic  race,  are  particularly  prone  to  commit  self-slaughter.  Saxony 
and  Sweden  have  a  high  suicide  rate.  Some  authorities  assert  that 
excessive  intellectual  development  is  responsible  for  the  suicidal  pen- 
chant in  Teutonic  countries,  but  there  must  be  some  additional  factor 
to  account  for  it.  The  Teutons  have  always  exhibited  a  marked  ten- 
dency towards  pessimism.  With  few  exceptions  their  philosophers  regard 
life  as  an  evil,  as  something  to  be  endured,  to  be  hated  rather  than 
enjoyed  and  loved.  Pessimism  is  rampant  in  the  works  of  Hartmann, 
Schopenhauer,  Ibsen,  Materlinck,  and  Nietzsche.  All  these  have  the  ills 
and  miseries  of  life  as  their  leading  theme.  While  they  do  not  preach 
suicide,  their  writings  tend  to  instill  disgust  with  life.  They  have  an 
insidiously  morbid  influence  upon  unbalanced  brains.  And  they  have, 
unfortunately,    done    much    to   promulgate   pessimism    and    to    foster    a 

■^  The  Valley  Magazine,  October,  1892. 


NEUROSES  IN  RELATION  TO  SOCIAL  DISEASES    191 

literary  school  that  emphasizes  the  vanities  and  disenchantments  of 
human  existence.  The  newspapers  recently  reported  the  case  of  a 
preacher's  son  who  took  his  own  life  after  devouring  the  hair-brained 
pseudo-philosophy  of  Marie  Corelli.  In  modern  problem  plays  suicide 
is  held  as  the  only  fitting  end  to  a  life  of  debauchery,  crime,  and  social 
degradation.  The  popularity  of  the  Rubaiyat  is  another  indication  of 
the  spread  of  the  cult  of  pessimism.  Even  Latin  countries  are  beginning 
to  be  affected  by  the  teachings  of  the  Teutonic  school  of  philosophy. 
French,  Spanish,  and  Italian  writers  are  fairly  revelling  in  life  weariness. 
Pierre  Loti's  literary  efforts  are  a  constant,  dismal  wail  over  the  nothing- 
ness of  life  and  human  endeavor.  D'Annunzio  is  finding  infinite  pleasure 
in  dissecting  moral  rottenness  and  preaching  the  glory  of  self-slaughter. 
And  so  it  is  everywhere.  Teutonism  is  converting  the  civilized  world 
into  a  veritable  vale  of  despair.  Its  philosophy  is  one  long  groan.  Is  it 
any  wonder  that  suicide  is  increasing,  and  that  even  the  United  States 
is  becoming  susceptible  to  the  gospel  of  pessimism  and  suicide?" 

The  element  of  suggestion  in  the  Hterature  alkided  to — which 
literature  is  itself  the  product  of  degeneracy — is  sufficiently  plain. 
It  is  especially  disastrous  in  the  case  of  neuropsychic  degenerates. 
This  point  has  been  expatiated  upon  in  the  chapter  on  the  etiology 
of  social  disease  in  general. 

In  a  general  way  "  world-weariness"  is  but  a  manifestation  of 
social  hysteria,  one  of  the  surest  signs  of  the  general  spread  of 
degeneracy.    There  are,  however,  exceptions. 

The  classification  of  suicides  by  the  average  social  philosopher 
is  very  simple.  He  divides  them  into  two  classes, — lunatics  and 
cowards.  Suicide,  however,  is  not  prima  facie  evidence  of  either 
lunacy  or  cowardice.  Suicides  may  be  divided  into  several 
classes,  viz.:  (i)  Logicians,  or,  at  least,  philosophers.  (2) 
Degenerates,  comprising  the  insane,  the  hysterical,  hypochon- 
driacs (short  of  insanity),  and  weaklings  who  take  a  short  cut 
to  the  evasion  of  cares  and  responsibilities  which  they  are  in 
no  wise  fitted  to  assume.  (3)  Sufferers  froin  intolerable  and 
incurable  disease,  who  refuse  to  longer  bear  their  misery. 

That  suicide  requires  a  high  degree  of  courage  in  some 
instances  seems  obvious  enough,  if  we  admit  that  suicides  are 
ever  sane.  In  some  cases,  however,  the  fear  of  self-destruction  is 
inhibited  or  overpowered  by  fear  of  something  else.  Fear  of  dis- 
grace or  punishment  after  detection  of  criminal  or  immoral  acts 


192  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

is  an  illustration.  There  are,  however,  instances  in  which  the 
subject  canvasses  the  situation  most  thoroughly  and  arrives  at  the 
determination  to  cease  living  only  after  calm  and  thoughtful 
deliberation.  Some  persons  find  that  life  has  nothing  to  offer 
them.  Friends,  family,  and  perhaps  all  resources  are  gone.  Sub- 
jects past  middle  life  are  not  unlikely  to  have  this  experience. 
Life  simply  bores,  or,  worse,  produces  psychic  pain  in  such  per- 
sons. It  is  not  always  that  they  are  weary  of  living ;  their  lives 
are  simply  without  a  purpose.  The  uselessness  of  life  makes  it  a 
burden.  To  such  subjects  suicide  may  seem  the  only  logical 
solution  of  an  embarrassing  problem. 

The  relation  of  insanity  to  suicide  is  sufficiently  obvious. 
There  are  instances,  however,  in  which  self-destruction  is  the  first 
known  manifestation  of  insanity.  A  correct  diagnosis  is  some- 
times impossible  in  such  cases,  although  careful  inquiry  will 
usually  elicit  a  history  of  premonitory  symptoms.  The  banding 
together  of  persons  who  mutually  agree  to  commit  suicide  is 
prima  facie  evidence  of  their  insanity.  The  "  suicide  clubs"  are 
mainly  aggregations  of  lunatics,  although  it  is  probable  that  there 
are  exceptions  in  their  ranks,  who  are  merely  seeking  notoriety, 
and  have  not  the  least  intention  of  self-destruction. 

The  healthy  individual  can  have  no  conception  of  the  weight 
of  the  burden  of  life  upon  the  hypochondriac.  To  the  person 
suffering  from  hypochondriasis  life  is  unattractive  at  best,  and 
often  intolerable.  The  neuropathic  individual  who  suffers  from  a 
disordered  liver  and  gastro-intestinal  tract,  who,  in  short,  is  the 
victim  of  autotoxemia,  is  not  unlikely  to  feel  that  there  is  no  joy 
anywhere,  and  to  commit  suicide  to  escape  the  ills  he  has,  with 
little  regard  to  the  alleged  ills  of  the  future  state  promised  the 
suicidist  by  theology. 

The  sufferer  from  painful  or  loathsome  incurable  disease 
sometimes  applies  the  philosophy  of  Epictetus  to  his  physical 
troubles,  and  walks  out  of  the  door  that  is  always  so  near  and  so 
open.'* 

That  suicide  is  always  an  illogical  or  immoral  act  is  incon- 

**  Encheiridion, 


NEUROSES  IN  RELATION  TO  SOCIAL  DISEASES    193 

ceivable.  That  the  individual  should  be  denied  a  voice  in  deter- 
mining the  question,  "  To  live,  or  not  to  live?"  is  absurd,  and  an 
encroachment  upon  individual  rights.  It  is,  moreover,  an  integral 
part  of  man's  inhumanity  to  man.  Man  destroys  the  lives  of  the 
lower  animals  to  end  pain  produced  by  injury  or  disease,  yet  not 
only  devises  ways  and  means  of  prolonging  the  sufferings  of 
human  beings  afflicted  by  incurable  physical  ills,  or  psychic  tor- 
ment, but  denies  them  the  right  to  end  their  own  misery.  So 
long  as  society  has  no  regularly  appointed  commission  whose  duty 
it  is  to  chloroform  out  of  existence  sufferers  from  painful  in- 
curable disease,  the  right  of  the  afflicted  to  interpose  in  their  own 
behalf  cannot  logically  be  denied,  whatever  objections  may  be 
urged  on  sentimental  or  moral  grounds. 

So  far  as  the  prevalent  insanity  explanation  is  concerned, — 
and  temporary  insanity  is  the  favorite  coroner's  verdict, — there 
are  too  many  carefully  planned  and  methodic  suicides  to  admit  of 
its  general  application.  Even  the  social  hysteria  evident  in  some 
suicide  epidemics  is  not  necessarily  a  sign  of  madness.  History 
shows  many  examples  of  suicides  who  were  not  insane.  Cleo- 
patra, Boadicea,  and  Brutus  were  not  mad.  Cato,  in  particular, 
was  philosophic.  His  reply  to  Plato,  "  Thou  reasonest  well," 
does  not  savor  of  madness. 

The  race  element  in  suicide  is  a  most  important  one.  The 
Chinese  commit  suicide  on  the  slightest  provocation.  With  them 
the  philosophy  of  Sophocles  should  be  very  popular : 

"  Not  to  be  born  surpasses  every  lot, 
And  the  next  best  lot,  when  one  is  born, 
Is  to  go  whence  he  came  as  soon  as  possible."  " 

That  insanity  is  not  the  impelling  power  with  the  Chinese  is 
shown  by  the  relative  infrequency  of  mental  disease  among  them, 
and  the  fact  that  they  rarely  commit  suicide  in  alien  lands. 
Despite  the  race  tendency  to  self-destruction  and  the  large 
number  of  Chinese  in  this  country,  very  few  suicides  have  been 
reported.     The  religious  desire  to  have  his  bones  buried  in  his 

■"The  CEdipus. 
13 


194  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

native  soil  deters  the  Chinaman  from  suicide  abroad.  An  in- 
stance of  wholesale  suicide  of  Chinese  in  a  foreign  land  is,  how- 
ever, recorded.  Early  in  the  history  of  the  Panama  Canal  some 
eight  hundred  coolies  were  brought  over  from  China  as  laborers. 
The  hardships  they  endured,  and  their  frightful  mortality  from 
Chagres  fever,  so  demoralized  them  that  they  drowned  them- 
selves by  dozens.  Their  method  was  to  walk  out  on  the  harbor 
sands  at  low  tide,  perch  upon  the  rocks,  and  patiently  await  the 
rising  of  the  tide  which  was  to  bring  them  surcease  from  toil  and 
misery.^* 

**  Nelson,  Five  Years  at  Panama. 


CHAPTER   V 

THE    CHEMISTRY   OF   SOCIAL   DISEASES 

Toxemia  in  its  relations  to  Vice  and  Crime — Alcoholism,  Narcotic  Ine- 
briety, and  Auto-intoxication 

Toxemia  in  its  relations  to  vice  and  crime  is  intended  to  cover 
in  a  general  way  the  effect  of  various  poisons  upon  the  nervous 
system  in  producing  abnormal  conditions,  functional  or  organic, 
acute  or  chronic,  that  sway  the  conduct  of  the  individual.  Ob- 
viously, the  minutiae  of  these  conditions  have  no  place  in  this 
volume.  The  principles  governing  the  physiologic  or  pathologic 
action  of  the  various  poisons,  organic  or  inorganic,  heterogenetic 
or  autogenetic,  are  the  same,  and  it  is  upon  these  general  prin- 
ciples that  my  discussion  of  the  subject  will  be  based.  The  local 
effects  of  irritant  poisons  will  not  be  touched  upon,  save  in  so  far 
as  they  produce  secondary  nervous  results.  The  effects  of  in- 
toxication of  the  nervous  system  are  germane  to  the  subject  in 
hand,  only  so  far  as  perturbation  of  temper,  will,  and  moral 
responsibility  are  concerned.  Much  that  is  here  presented  is 
speculative,  as  new  applications  of  scientific  facts  are  likely  to  be, 
but  the  main  argument  is  based  upon  known  effects  of  poisons, 
more  especially  of  narcotics  and  alcohol,  and  upon  practical 
clinical  observations  of  an  analogous  character. 

It  will  be  at  once  understood  that  this  is  not  an  attempt  to  put 
crime  upon  a  purely  chemical  basis ;  I  am  simply  elaborating  a 
factor  in  the  etiology  of  crime  that  has  been  in  the  main  ignored, 
save  in  so  far  as  the  effects  of  alcohol  are  concerned.  Its  import- 
ance, in  my  opinion,  will  grow  as  science  progresses,  although  it 
is  now  merely  a  subordinate  part  of  the  foundation  of  material- 
ism underlying  social  diseases. 

INEBRIETY    AND    CRIME 

The  first  and  most  important  poison  for  discussion  is  alcohol, 
one  of  the  best  of  man's  servants  and  unquestionably  his  worst 

195 


196  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

enemy.  Alcoholism  is  primarily  a  toxemia,  pure  and  simple, 
whether  it  be  acute  or  chronic.  It  should  really  be  regarded  as  a 
double  toxemia.  Every  function  of  the  body  is  vitiated  and  per- 
turbed by  it.  Metabolism  and  the  integrity  of  the  glandular  sys- 
tem especially  are  perverted,  and  as  is  usual  under  such  circum- 
stances, secondary  toxemia  results.  Auto-intoxication  then,  may 
be  inferred  in  every  alcoholic  subject.  So  far  as  the  vice  and 
crime  question  is  concerned,  we  have  to  do  only  with  the  effects 
of  this  toxemia  upon  the  nervous  system ;  which  effects  may  be 
primary  or  secondary.  The  effects  of  alcohol  upon  the  circulation 
are  important  here,  only  so  far  as  they  are  productive  of  func- 
tional or  organic  change  in  the  nervous  system. 

The  idea  that  drunkenness  should  be  considered  on  a  purely 
physical  basis  has  been  abhorrent  to  the  moralist.  The  physical 
view  is,  however,  gaining  ground,  and  may  even  now  be  said  to 
be  on  a  firm  footing.  Drunkenness  has  long  been  regarded  as  a 
vice  over  which  the  individual  has  perfect  control,  to  be  cured  by 
exhortation  and  prayer.  Worse  than  the  fallacious  ideas  of  the 
laity,  worse  than  the  errors  of  the  pulpit,  is  the  influence  of  the 
physician  who  regards  the  study  of  inebriety  solely  from  a  moral 
stand-point.  The  individual  who  entertains  such  narrow  ideas 
is  a  most  formidable  impediment  to  the  advancement  of  science. 

The  bigotry  and  intolerance  exhibited  regarding  the  inebriety 
question  is  familiar  in  other  directions.  It  is  not  long  since  the 
lunatic  was  thought  to  be  possessed  of  a  devil  to  be  exorcised. 
The  cold  shower  and  the  straight- jacket  were  once  the  armamen- 
tarium of  the  asylum.  It  is  not  so  very  long  since  the  genius  of  a 
Le  Sage  had  not  far  to  seek  for  a  Dr.  Sangrado,  with  his  ever- 
ready  lancet  and  barrels  of  hot  water.  The  world  should  now  be 
too  enlightened  to  be  misled  upon  the  inebriety  question,  yet  a 
short  time  ago  a  prominent  Chicago  physician  publicly  said  that 
"  a  drunkard  should  be  punished  like  any  other  criminal." 

The  inebriety  question  is  as  important  from  an  evolutionary 
stand-point  as  is  any  other  condition  bearing  upon  the  physical 
and  social  welfare  of  the  race.  The  moral  factor  per  se  bears  no 
more  relation  to  the  causation  of  inebriety  than  it  does  to  typhoid 
fever.     Certain  moralists  claim  that,  inasmuch  as  the  inebriate 


THE   CHEMISTRY   OF    SOCIAL    DISEASES     197 

wilfully  took  the  first  drink,  the  question  is  of  moral  significance 
only.  This  is  as  logical  as  that  typhoid  fever  is  to  be  cured  by 
moral  persuasion,  because  the  victim  voluntarily  drank  water  con- 
taining the  germs  of  the  disease. 

The  fallacious  reasoning  of  the  moralist  is  due  to  a  perceptive 
faculty  primarily  narrow  and  a  misconception  of  the  inebriate's 
condition.  The  moralist  sees  in  his  mind's  eye  the  inebriated 
individual  deliberately  taking  his  first  drink,  although  he  has 
seen  the  evil  consequences  of  alcohol  and  has  perhaps  been 
warned  of  its  dangers.  The  moralist  forgets  that  he  is  not  con- 
fronted by  the  man  as  he  took  his  first  drink,  but  by  one  who 
has  systematically  abused  his  physiologic  functions.  Admitting 
that  in  certain  cases  the  insatiable  craving  for  liquor  is  a  result 
and  not  a  cause  of  alcoholism,  the  physician  must  accept  the 
physical  conditions  as  he  finds  them.  Whether  or  not  the  ine- 
briate was  primarily  predisposed  to  drunkenness  is  a  secondary 
matter.  He  is  called  upon  to  treat  a  man  whose  tissues  and 
organs  have  been  saturated  and  thoroughly  poisoned  by  a  power- 
ful drug.  No  logical  physician  claims  that  a  morphinomaniac  is 
to  be  treated  entirely  upon  moral  grounds.  Such  subjects  are 
none  the  less  diseased  because  the  craving  for  morphia  is  a 
result  of  the  drug  and  did  not  exist  primarily.  The  same  reason- 
ing should  be  applied  to  the  one  drug  as  to  the  other.  In  brief, 
alcoholism  should  be  regarded  as  a  disease-producing  vice,  and  a 
vice-producing  disease. 

Susceptibility  to  alcohol  varies  as  much  as  susceptibility  to 
other  poisons.  Some  persons  would  be  killed  by  half  a  grain  of 
morphine,  whilst  others  tolerate  many  times  this  quantity.  What 
is  temperate  indulgence  in  one  man,  is  gross  intemperance  in 
another.  The  amount  of  alcohol  tolerated  by  a  robust  man  would 
be  most  disastrous  in  its  effects  upon  a  child  or  woman.  Nervous 
susceptibility,  the  condition  of  the  eliminative  organs,  and  the 
sensitiveness  of  the  circulatory  system  modify  the  effects  of  alco- 
hol. This  susceptibility  is  often  discovered  late  in  life.  Alcohol 
prescribed  as  a  remedy  has  wrought  great  harm  in  such  cases. 

What  are  the  results  of  alcohol  taken  in  quantity  sufficient  tc 
produce  physiologic  effects? 


198  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

Briefly,  alcohol  produces  primarily  overstimulation,  and  sec- 
ondarily exhaustion  and  perhaps  a  varying  degree  of  paralysis 
of  the  heart  and  blood-vessels.  It  causes  congestion  which,  if 
prolonged,  is  followed  by  a  deposit  of  connective  tissue,  with 
resulting  condensation  of  the  tissues  of  the  brain,  spinal  cord, 
nerves,  and  important  organs  of  the  body. 

The  eflFects  of  alcohol  are  well  shown  by  the  drunkard's  liver. 
Here,  as  a  consequence  of  long-continued  congestion  produced  by 
alcohol,  occurs  the  formation  of  new  tissues  as  hard  and  firm  as 
those  of  an  ordinary  scar.  This  contracts  and  strangulates  the 
liver  substance,  and  finally  so  reduces  the  size  and  functional 
capacity  of  the  liver  that  it  ceases  work  altogether,  with  a  fatal 
result.  Similar  changes  occur  in  the  kidney.  Considering  the 
extreme  toxicity  of  the  biliary  and  renal  secretions,  an  element 
of  secondary  toxemia  may  be  readily  appreciated.  Moral  per- 
suasion will  not  restore  a  gin  liver  or  kidneys  to  a  normal 
condition. 

The  conditions  described  in  the  liver  and  kidneys  occur  in 
greater  or  less  degree  in  the  brain  and  its  coverings,  and  blood- 
vessels. Even  where  there  is  as  yet  no  permanent  thickening  of 
tissues,  there  is  produced  by  the  temporary  influence  of  alcohol 
disturbed  circulation.  That  diseased  brain  circulation  and  struc- 
ture cause  defective  reasoning  and  will  is  incontestable.  Moral 
means  of  restoration  of  the  will  where  such  changes  have 
occurred  are  mere  moonshine.  This  is  not,  however,  an  argu- 
ment against  judicious  moral  means  as  an  adjunct  in  the  correc- 
tion of  inebriety  in  general,  nor  is  it  a  denial  of  the  fact  that  the 
strong  emotional  influence  of  religious  conversion  often  cures 
inebriety. 

In  the  majority  of  cases  of  inebriety  there  is  a  primarily 
weakened  will  power,  incidental  to  unstable  nervous  equilibrium. 
This  may  be  due  to  acquired  organic  disease  or  to  heredity,  or 
may  be  peculiar  to  the  individual  himself,  and  bear  no  relation  to 
either  heredity  or  disease.  Its  recognition  is  imperative,  if  we 
would  cure  inebriety.  It  certainly  should  be  considered  in  study- 
ing the  general  relations  of  alcohol  to  vice  and  crime,  for  it  is 
the  key  to  the  situation. 


THE   CHEMISTRY    OF    SOCIAL    DISEASES     199 

The  question  of  heredity  in  alcoholism  is  important.  Whether 
the  acquired  drunkenness  of  the  parent  may  be  transmitted  to  the 
child  has  been  seriously  questioned.  Probably,  in  most  instances, 
a  bad  nervous  heredity  in  the  parent  is  responsible  for  his  own 
and  his  child's  inebriety,  but  I  firmly  believe  that  indulgence  in 
alcohol  in  one  generation  may  appear  as  neuropathy  and  inebriety 
in  the  next,  or  perhaps  in  several  succeeding  generations.  What- 
ever the  explanation,  a  considerable  proportion  of  the  children  of 
inebriates  become  drunkards.  Example  and  early  training,  of 
course,  often  play  a  subordinate  role  here. 

That  a  primary  neuropathic  predisposition  to  drunkenness 
underlies  many  cases  of  inebriety  is  easily  shown.  We  will  take 
for  illustration  half  a  dozen  individuals  of  average  physique  and 
degree  of  intelligence — men  who  present  no  striking  differences, 
intellectual  or  physical.  Subject  these  persons  to  the  same  en- 
vironment, social  influences,  and  facilities  for  indulgence  in 
liquor ;  give  them  from  the  beginning  the  same  amount  of  liquor 
for  a  certain  length  of  time,  and  observe  the  difference  in  eflfects. 
One  subject  becomes  moody  and  taciturn  ;  another  quarrelsome ; 
another  maniacal ;  another  garrulous ;  another  overflows  with 
good  nature.  A  certain  proportion  becomes  confirmed  inebriates. 
There  must  be  some  primary  difference  of  physical  constitution 
in  these  individuals  to  account  for  the  wide  variation  in  results. 
A  and  B,  perhaps,  indulge  in  a  social  glass  of  champagne.  B 
finishes  his  wine  and  goes  quietly  home.  A,  however,  goes  on  a 
drunken  debauch,  which  is  the  forerunner  of  many  more.  There 
is  surely  some  primary  structural  difference  in  these  two  men  to 
account  for  the  difference  in  actions. 

The  same  primary  instability  of  will  is  often  responsible  for 
other  forms  of  vice,  and  for  crime.  This  instability  is  enhanced 
by  alcoholic  indulgence.  The  intimate  association  of  alcoholism 
with  all  forms  of  viciousness  and  criminality  is  easily  explained 
upon  this  basis. 

The  existence  of  an  unstable  will  may  be  unsuspected  until 
its  development  by  the  first  indulgence  in  liquor.  Add  to  this 
primary  feebleness  of  will  the  poisonous  effects  of  alcohol  on  the 
brain,  and  it  is  easy  to  understand  that  after  the  individual  ha« 


200  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

been  a  drunkard  for  some  years  he  is  in  a  condition  in  which 
moral  means,  and  too  often  even  physical  means,  are  of  very  little 
service.  Preach  to  this  subject,  dose  him  with  drugs,  or  "  punish 
him  like  any  other  criminal,"  and  at  the  end  of  the  treatment  the 
patient  will  be  no  better.  Possibly  what  little  will  he  has  remain- 
ing has  been  developed  into  a  disposition  to  drink  out  of  sheer 
obstinacy. 

Practically,  then,  inebriety  means  degeneracy,  the  subject 
being  usually  primarily  defective  in  nervous  structure  and  will- 
powder.  If  he  was  not  so  primarily,  he  has  become  so  by  the 
action  of  the  drug  habit.  It  is  a  noteworthy  fact  that  the  family 
histories  of  dipsomaniacs  are  largely  tinctured  with  nerve  dis- 
order. Hysteria,  epilepsy,  migraine,  and  even  insanity  are  found 
all  along  the  line.  In  such  cases  inebriety  is  but  one  of  the 
varying  manifestations  of  bad  heredity.  The  degeneracy  of 
nerve  structure  and  function,  with  the  correlated  defective  will, 
may  develop  criminal  or  depraved  instincts,  as  already  remarked. 

Physical  degeneracy  alone  excepted,  alcohol  is  unquestionably 
the  most  potent  factor  in  the  vice  and  crime  problem.  Here  is 
the  only  phase  of  the  subject  in  which  the  materialist  and 
moralist  have  ever  met  upon  common  ground.  Arguments 
against  the  truth  of  the  proposition  that  inebriety  is  the  most 
important  factor  in  the  etiology  of  vice  and  crime  have  had  for 
their  basis  the  cupidity  of  those  who  manufacture  and  sell  liquor, 
the  apologies  of  those  who  resent  any  reflection  upon  the  social 
glass, — the  "  moderate"  use  of  alcohol, — and,  finally,  the  egotism 
of  the  respectable  inebriate  who  sees  in  the  proposition  an  implied 
reflection  upon  his  own  moral  character. 

Statistics  on  the  relation  of  alcohol  to  vice  and  crime  have 
been  juggled  with  ad  nauseam.  Communities  in  which  alcoholic 
beverages  are  freely  indulged  in  have  been  compared  both  favor- 
ably and  unfavorably  with  those  in  which  blue  laws  prevail.  I 
unhesitatingly  state  my  belief  that  statistics  bearing  upon  this 
question  are  worthless.  The  statement  which  has  been  made  that 
criminality  is  greater  in  Berne,  with  only  four  saloons  per  thou- 
sand of  population,  than  in  Zurich,  with  its  twelve  per  thousand, 
is  a  most  fallacious  and  sophistical  argument.     The  problem  of 


THE   CHEMISTRY    OF    SOCIAL    DISEASES     201 

the  relation  of  alcohol  to  vice  and  crime  is  not  to  be  settled  by 
mathematical  computation  and  comparative  statistics,  but  by 
physiologic  and  clinical  facts. 

Let  us  revert  again  briefly  to  the  action  of  alcohol  upon  the 
nervous  system.  We  will  begin  with  the  premise  that  a  main- 
tenance of  nervous  equilibrium  is  absolutely  essential  to  right 
thinking  and  right  acting, — this  from  the  physiologic,  not  from  a 
moral,  view-point.  If  this  be  true,  it  is  obvious  that  anything 
that  seriously  impairs  nervous  physiology  must  necessarily  impair 
the  individual's  conception  of  his  proper  relation  to  his  com- 
munity. Granting  that  this  is  not  seriously  impaired,  but  is  over- 
balanced by  animal  impulses,  all  that  is  necessary  to  impel  to 
criminal  or  vicious  acts  is  a  corresponding  inhibition  of  the  will. 
That  alcohol  brings  this  about  cannot  be  denied.  The  loss  of 
environmental  control  is  of  especial  importance,  for  with  it  comes 
the  removal  of  the  thin  veneer  imparted  by  civilization  in  its 
broadest  sense,  and  the  immediate  cropping-out  of  the  animal  that 
this  veneer  so  difficultly  and  so  imperfectly  conceals.  The  results 
vary  with  the  dosage  of  alcohol  and  the  innate  susceptibility  of 
the  subject.  The  damigc  done  may  be  temporary  or  permanent, 
according  to  the  duration  of  the  influence  of  alcohol  and  the 
hereditary  proclivities  of  the  subject.  The  dosage  and  individual 
characteristics  determine,  in  conjunction  with  environment  and 
hetero-suggestion,  the  degree  of  viciousness  or  criminality  that 
results.  Theft,  murder,  suicide,  assault,  sexual  crime,  indecency, 
sexual  perversion — any  or  several  of  these  may  accrue  from  the 
action  of  alcohol  on  the  nervous  centres.  The  pernicious  action  of 
alcohol  on  various  organs  of  the  body,  and  their  functions,  has 
been  demonstrated  by  experiment,  time  out  of  mind.  That  the 
sense  of  moral  responsibility  can  remain  unimpaired  by  the  use  of 
a  poison  that  seriously  disturbs  all  the  viscera,  and  particularly 
the  brain,  is  impossible.  The  defenders  of  alcohol  must  admit 
that  a  drug  which  impairs  brain  functions  down  to  the  point  of 
coma  is  not  likely  to  leave  the  moral  sense  unscathed.  The 
danger  of  alcohol  is  so  pronounced  that  a  marked  reaction  against 
it  has  developed  of  recent  years  among  medical  men.  Tt  is  no 
longer  considered  a  remedy  to  be  prescribed  offhand.    The  list  of 


iBOS  THE  DISEASES  OF  SOCIETY 

cwarfaBrHB^  ■■  wIkIi  it  sfaoidd  not  be  givea  bas  steaffilv  gnvwo, 
wOiB  it  sbonld  he  alauiowag  to  ttfaose  who  aore  want  to  prescribe  or 

^dritk  alcohol  as  a  madtler  cf  iromiltineL 

Alcohol  is  not  a  can%  <rf  affl  classes  <rf  crimes.  Qreatcrames, 
aftfWMmBwg  menial  adivittr^  keen  peicqpttiQa,  deveiwess  of  con- 
(oepttmasu  nMiiieyidfilT^  fiadkr  of  poarpose,  great  mechanical  ddD,  fer- 
tti&QT  <q£  lesomw.  or  a  praioraid  ho^^ 

molt  peqpeferaied  fanr  aloohalics.     Man^  crimes,  snch  as  gigantic 
svmdSn^  schemes^  clnwiaiMl  the  highest  degicc  <if  ndbrii^enoe. 

I^eUhp  cjiuBKis,  and  criuKS  of  mnpnlse  and  cmattnn  cspeoalfy, 
aie  chaiaclensltic  of  akofaoEsnL  The  occasional  drinloer  is  move 
Iftchr  to  tifMWiiil  crimes  of  impnlsBe  than  the  sleadw  dnnicBr,  whose 
cwnriunMtAJt.  of  rig^  aaad  wiong  is  palaed,  it  is  tnae;  bnt  who  is 
too  .widdtn  and  maniiiiMJte  to  le^pond  to  aoouces  of  acnle  bnm 
exbiaAion.  Foflr  sevtMy  per  oent.  of  crimes  of  impidse,  famtal- 
Tttp„  and  enaolnn  aie  coanmtfeDd  hrf  pei-'Miwiis  wlHise  brains  are  ahjo- 
Thc  twilial  oitgans  erf  luuiiul  avc  ont  erf  use  for  the 
1  ait  snch  laiimes  ocrtam  sabjccls  are  xtxy  djuugciousw 
I  sa^  ccfllaiB  sribjecis  advisedhr,  for,  as  abcadr  shown,  aD  do  not 
act  aibe  undini'  alcohnl.  WhiyLej'  is  a.  gicat  dcHMiwIiatf  of 
dharader.  The  oU  adag^  '"  Wfaorifs  in  a  nan  when  he  is  sober, 
cnmes  ont  whtu  he's  di  m A,,*"  had  moie  than  a  germ  of  tmih  in  iL 
/»  eon  zxritas  was  meant  in  a  Bbesal,  not  a  figmatiic,  sense. 

The  tiwe  il^iwuiiniii  s^nMnui  invanaUir  b»6  criminal  ftenden- 
CKS  that  BB^  dnidup  at  anj'  tamei  His  craninaBly,  Boe  bis 
pniwHiii,  gpraes^,  is  of  an  eaqJoaric  type.  The  innpnise  to  hiii  is 
yspwialw  Bkeiir  to  dewelup  snddenljr.  Eke  an  epileptic  seiznre. 

Akofaofism  is  oAen  a  caHBe  of  crime  wfaidi  is  so  plain  and 
direct  that:  he  who  mns  vow  read.  Einrswine  indn^ence  in 
aknhol  ofiten  so  lessens  the  fMamajg^  r^j^u^iiy  of  die  Ticfim  dot 
r  later  he  canwol  rfjiaaoi  the  wheiewdllul  to  pordhase  his 
His  Hiiiwafl  amiH<r  is  lowered  and  bis  appetite  fior  fiqnor 
iBcreased  firom  da^  to  danr.  Should  neocsalhr  demand,  he  wiD 
tifeeal  ciiBwrH  n^Boor.  isdbjboc^  to  bonr  oit.  or  goods  nnt  he  can  sell  to 
umti^miu  snDOBBeT-  Fcw  inEsIEzif  wBimi  the  otstbbbjp  fesr  ffiosaor  ni>f  Jff^ 
I  han?c  hmfmm  dipaoaniaflimags  iten  'MnAi  doe  aUStcdhA  irpwrn  specinaen 
bofifiSes  Ml  2  ssmnsesMD  of  padnQfloigT.    I\ire  alcssBsoB  is  often  dmolc 


THE    CHEMISTRY   OF    SOCIAL   DISEASES     203 

by  persons  who  claim  that  it  gives  them  more  drink  for  less 
money  than  any  milder  tipple.  Among  the  lower  classes  even 
benzine  is  drunk  as  a  beverage. 

Whether  alcoholism  is  on  the  increase  in  this  country  has 
been  discussed  from  all  sides.  As  usual,  statistics  have  been 
invoked  to  prove  the  question.  I  have  already  expressed  an 
opinion  as  to  their  value  in  the  issue  under  consideration. 
Although  the  per  capita  consumption  of  spirits  has  decreased  of 
late  years,  I  am  convinced,  from  personal  observation,  that  it  is  on 
the  increase  among  the  higher  classes,  especially  among  women. 
The  high-pressure  life  of  America  has  had  its  effect  here  as 
elsewhere.  Tippling  among  women  was  once  rare,  and  subject 
to  taboo,  whilst  now  it  is  so  common  in  our  large  cities  as  to  pass 
without  comment.  The  frequency  with  which  even  respectable 
women  may  be  seen  in  public  drinking  an  anteprandial  cocktail  is 
a  matter  of  common  observation.  At  a  recent  ladies'  social  afifair 
within  my  knowledge,  attended  by  from  twenty-five  to  thirty 
respectable  women,  cocktails  were  served ;  one  woman  only  de- 
clined  to  partake.  Cocktails  at  women's  clubs  pass  without  com- 
ment; indeed,  they  are  so  common  that  the  situation  is  often  a 
source  of  embarrassment  to  the  female  teetotaler.  If  the  increase 
of  tippling  on  the  part  of  women  does  not  indicate  a  lowering  of 
the  moral  standard  of  society,  the  observations  and  deductions  of 
physicians  and  sociologists  on  the  effects  of  alcohol  on  women  are 
fallacious.  The  disastrous  results  of  tippling  by  females  are  only 
too  well  known  to  the  physician.  The  drinking  American 
woman,  already  neurasthenic,  is  fostering  degeneracy  for  the 
race.  No  pretext  is  now  too  flimsy  to  excuse  the  taking  of 
'■  bracers"  by  society  women,  whose  lives  are  spent  in  enervating 
dissipation  and  excitement.  The  shrewd  "  nerve  tonic"  patent 
medicine  man  takes  advantage  of  the  fashionable  woman's  appe- 
tite, and  has  no  difficulty  in  selling  his  soul-destroying,  nerve- 
wrecking  mixtures  of  alcohol,  morphine,  cocaine,  and  other 
drugs. 

The  relation  of  alcohol  to  prostitution  is  a  matter  of  common 
knowledge.  I  will  merely  allude  to  it  here,  as  it  will  appear  in 
detail  in  the  chapter  on  Sexual  Vice  and  Crime.     Suffice  it  to 


204  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

say,  in  this  connection,  that  inebriety  is  both  a  cause  and  a  result 
of  prostitution.  The  woman  tippler  who  has  not  abundant  means 
prostitutes  herself  sooner  or  later.  The  male  inebriate  in  necessi- 
tous circumstances  steals  that  he  may  drink.  The  female  sells 
herself  for  drink  money  if  she  can,  and  steals  if  she  must. 

Society  is  peculiarly  responsible  for  one  of  the  principal 
causes  of  alcoholic  inebriety.  The  saloon  has  been  well  said  to  be 
"  the  poor  man's  club."  It  has,  however,  all  the  evil  qualities 
with  none  of  the  redeeming  features  of  the  rich  man's  club.  The 
well-to-do  club  member  may  drink  or  not,  as  he  chooses.  The 
member,  by  courtesy,  of  the  poor  man's  club  who  does  not  drink 
soon  realizes  that  he  is  persona  non  grata  in  the  saloon-keeper's 
eyes.  Society  does  nothing  to  keep  the  poor  man's  club  from 
ruining  him.  There  is  only  one  way  it  can  be  done,  and  that  is 
to  give  him  an  attractive  and  efficient  substitute.  Clubs,  in  the 
higher  sense,  for  the  poor  are  a  crying  necessity.  The  poor  man 
clamors  for  social  life,  for  warmth,  light,  recreation,  and  happi- 
ness. We  give  him  libraries — and  saloons.  The  saloon  has 
matters  all  its  own  way.  Many  a  man  buys  liquor  in  the  saloon 
to  compensate  the  proprietor  for  the  use  of  sanitary  conveniences 
that  can  be  found  nowhere  else,  thanks  to  the  mock  modesty  and 
prudery  of  our  social  system.  Free  lunches  for  the  poor  man  and 
the  workingman  are  thrown  in  with  liquor  purchased,  as  an  in- 
ducement to  buy  more  liquor.  The  workingman  has  no  other 
noonday  cheap  lunch  club,  hence  he  must  resort  to  the  saloon, 
willy  nilly,  or  content  himself  with  the  cold  comfort  of  his 
dinner-pail. 

The  only  apparently  logical  attempt  to  legislate  against  drunk- 
enness has  recently  been  made  in  England.  Its  practicality  can 
only  be  demonstrated  by  experience,  but  it  will  surely  have  the 
effect  of  lessening  crime.  The  new  English  law  interferes  in  no 
sense  with  personal  rights.  The  right  to  sell  and  to  drink  liquor 
cannot  be  denied.  The  right  to  get  drunk  and  become  a  menace 
and  a  burden  to  society,  and  the  right  to  further  debauch  and 
practically  rob  a  drunkard,  may  logically  be  denied. 

The  chief  features  of  the  act  concern  saloon-keepers,  asso- 
ciations known  as  clubs,  grocers,  drinkers  and  drunkards,  and 


THE    CHEMISTRY    OF    SOCIAL    DISEASES     205 

even  "  treaters."  The  saloon-keeper  is  forbidden  to  sell  to 
drunken  people.  The  burden  of  proof  is  upon  him  to  show  that 
the  drunkenness,  when  reported,  was  not  his  fault ;  that  he  took 
all  reasonable  means  to  prevent  it.  The  penalty  for  supplying  a 
drunkard  with  liquor  is  a  fine,  varying  in  amount,  or  imprison- 
ment for  a  month,  with  or  without  hard  labor.  This  applies 
generally  to  the  person  who  "  treats."  There  are  special 
penalties  for  saloon-keepers  and  club  managers. 

If  a  man  or  woman  has  been  convicted  as  an  habitual  drunk- 
ard, notification,  with  photograph  and  description,  is  made  to 
every  establishment  in  which  liquor  is  sold,  and  all  license- 
holders,  saloon-keepers,  club  managers,  and  grocers  are  warned 
against  selling  the  person  liquors.  There  is  a  fine  of  fifty  dollars 
for  the  first  oflfence,  and  one  hundred  dollars  for  subsequent  ones. 
Clubs  must  be  registered,  and  must  report  on  their  organization 
and  rules.  They  may  sell  liquor  only  on  the  premises  to  members 
and  their  guests.  These  restrictions  are  aimed  at  bogus  clubs, 
and  are  fortified  with  penalties.  Grocers  are  licensed  on  the 
same  terms  as  public  houses.  The  grocer  who  sells  liquor  under 
the  name  of  "  groceries"  is  prosecuted. 

Other  provisions  relate  specifically  to  the  drunkard.  The 
police  may  arrest  him,  even  if  not  disorderly,  if  he  is  not  capable 
of  taking  care  of  himself,  and  he  will  be  held  until  sober.  If  the 
drunken  person  is  accompanied  by  a  child  under  seven  years  of 
age,  punishment  by  fine  and  imprisonment  is  provided,  being 
aimed  particularly  against  drunken  mothers.  Habitual  drunken- 
ness is  a  ground  for  marital  separation.  Habitual  drunkards 
may  be  black-listed  for  three  years,  and  penalized  for  soliciting 
drink. 

Licenses  have  been  surrendered  since  the  law  went  into  effect. 
One  paper  says,  "  For  the  first  time  for  a  long  period  not  a 
single  case  of  drunkenness  came  before  the  Kettering  Bench  yes- 
terday. The  presiding  magistrate  said  this  was  due  to  the  new- 
licensing  act,  which  statement  was  confirmed  by  the  superinten- 
dent of  police." 

The  rise  and  fall  of  crime  in  Chicago  has  been  found  to 
correspond  with  the  privileges  accorded  the  all-night  saloon. 


2o6  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

NARCOTIC    INEBRIETY    AND    CRIME 

Narcotic  inebriety — using  the  term  narcotic  in  the  sense  of  its 
usual  appHcation  as  distinguished  from  alcoholic — bears  a  certain 
etiologic  relation  to  vice  and  crime.  Much  of  what  has  been  said 
regarding  alcohol  bears  with  equal  force  upon  the  action  of 
narcotic  drugs.  They  are  less  important  than  alcohol  in  vice  and 
crime  etiology,  because  of  the  relative  facility  of  obtaining  the 
latter  and  its  common  usage.  Few  people  go  through  life  with^ 
out  being  tempted  to  drink  liquor,  whereas  relatively  few  are 
ever  tempted  to  use  narcotic  drugs.  The  taste  of  liquor  is  in- 
viting ;  that  of  drugs  is  repelling.  The  social  drink  that  develops 
a  taste  for  liquor,  perhaps  even  a  latent  dipsomania,  is  usual ;  the 
social  dose  of  morphine  or  cocaine  is  unknown. 

The  use  of  narcotic  drugs  by  the  incautious  physician  is  often 
responsible  for  moral  and  physical  wreckage.  Pain  clamors  for 
relief — relief  at  any  price.  The  physician  of  inexperience,  and 
sometimes  of  experience,  resorts  immediately  to  his  hypodermic 
— perhaps  again  and  again.  Almost  imperceptibly  a  habit  is 
established.  The  patient  has  been  relieved  of  pain  at  frightful 
cost.  It  is  true  that  the  relief  of  pain  is  often  an  imperative  in- 
dication ;  it  is  true  that  a  primary  nervous  instability  is  often 
the  reason  for  acquirement  of  the  morphine  habit,  yet  the  fact 
remains  that  physicians  in  general  are  too  hasty  with  the  nerve- 
wrecking  hypodermic.  Modern  surgery  has  done  much  to  check 
the  indiscriminate  use  of  morphine,  by  removing  painful  condi- 
tions that  once  doomed  humanity  to  a  choice  between  the  mor- 
phine habit  and  the  agonies  of  the  damned.  In  abdominal 
diseases,  especially,  it  has  been  shown  that  morphine  and  its  con- 
geners work  evil  by  masking  symptoms  and  locking  up  the 
bowels, — the  natural  outlet  for  abdominal  infection.  Surgical 
science  has  shown  that,  to  paraphrase  good  Master  Shakespeare, 
the  patient  would  better  bear  the  colic  that  he  has,  than  fly  to 
dangers  that  he  knows  not  of. 

Notwithstanding  the  relative  infrequency  of  narcotic  ine- 
briety as  compared  with  the  alcoholic  form,  it  is  a  more  im- 
portant factor  in  the  etiology  of  vice  and  crime  than  is  generally 
supposed.     It  is  a  far  cry  from  the  infuriated  hasheesh-eating 


THE    CHEMISTRY   OF    SOCIAL    DISEASES     207 

Polynesian  to  the  refined  victim  of  morphine  or  cocaine  in  civil- 
ized society,  yet  the  way  between  the  two  is  strewn  with  the  moral 
and  physical  wreckage  produced  by  drugs. 

The  moral  sense  and  will  are  most  seriously  impaired  by 
narcotics.  Lying  and  deceit  are  second  nature  to  those  addicted 
to  the  narcotic  habit.  In  many  instances  moral  obliquity  begins 
with  the  deception  necessary  to  conceal  the  use  of  the  drug.  It 
may  be  due  to  the  subterfuges  necessary  to  obtain  the  longed-for 
narcotic.  By  no  means  infrequently  the  victim  is  first  impelled  to 
lie  by  the  circumstances  surrounding  the  procurement  of  the 
drug.  In  many  cases  the  victim  is  compelled  to  steal  to  procure 
money  for  its  purchase.  This  is  often  due  to  necessity,  but  some- 
times to  a  desire  for  secrecy  in  the  habit,  where  expenditure  of 
money  must  be  accounted  for.  That  the  narcotic  habitue  is  gen- 
erally an  habitual  liar  is  conceded  by  the  majority  of  physicians 
experienced  in  narcotism. 

Justice  demands  the  statement  that  not  all  victims  of  the 
opium  or  cocaine  habit  owe  their  condition  to  the  use  of  the 
drug  to  relieve  pain.  Physicians,  nurses,  and  druggists  often 
become  habituated  to  it,  primarily  through  curiosity,  and  second- 
arily through  the  peculiar  fascination  exerted  by  it.  Morphine 
is  the  most  fascinating  substance  known  to  man — far  more  seduc- 
tive, indeed,  than  liquor,  once  the  habit  has  begun.  One  of  its 
principal  dangers  is  that  the  system  can  be  become  adapted  to  it, 
to  a  degree,  although,  despite  the  evidence  of  that  king  of  opium 
eaters,  De  Quincey,  who  lived  to  the  ripe  old  age  of  seventy,  the 
average  longevity  of  habitues  is  only  about  forty-five  to  fifty 
years. 

The  world  owes  some  of  its  choicest  gems  of  literature,  ora- 
tory, and  art  to  opium,  for  in  certain  brains  its  effect  is  enhance- 
ment of  intellectual  brilliancy,  and  especially  the  faculty  of 
imagination.  But  such  instances  are  rare,  and  even  in  them  the 
morbidity  and  suffering  in  the  intervals  of  the  action  of  the  drug 
more  than  compensate  for  the  flashes  of  genius  it  excites.  Lender 
its  use  the  clod  becomes  more  brutish  than  ever,  while  mediocrity 
speedily  sinks  to  the  level  of  the  clod.  Such  brain  flashes  as  the 
mediocre  victim  has  are  weird,  kaleidoscopic  fantasies.      He  is 


2o8  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

more  likely  to  see  red  devils  than  the  "  dream  maidens"  of  a 
De  Quincey. 

In  general,  it  may  be  said  that  no  drug  so  lowers  the  moral 
tone  as  opium.  Cocaine  comes  next  in  order  of  potency  in  this 
direction.  Nerve-degeneracy  soon  succeeds  the  period  in  which 
mental  exhilaration  is  experienced,  and  nerve-cell  and  fibre  simply 
refuse  to  perform  their  functions  properly  without  their  accus- 
tomed stimulus.  Between  doses  the  life  of  the  habitue  is  largely 
vegetative.  In  time  the  victim  cannot  arouse  his  degenerated 
brain-cells,  even  with  the  drug  that  has  enslaved  him,  no  matter 
how  large  the  quantity  taken.  Cocaine  has  been  a  false  friend  to 
such  unfortunates.  By  superadding  the  new  drug  to  the  old,  they 
have  succeeded  in  temporarily  reviving  the  benumbed  cerebrum. 
The  succeeding  depression  is  worse  than  that  following  opium 
alone.  Dulness,  negligence  of  habit,  slothfulness,  uncleanliness 
of  person,  loss  of  memory,  indifference  to  business,  moral  de- 
pravity,— all  follow  in  the  wake  of  narcotism.  With  these  phe- 
nomena comes  psychic  as  well  as  physical  agony  that  is  often 
beyond  endurance,  and  relieved  only  by  taking  more  of  the  drug. 

The  dangers  of  opium  in  woman  are  even  greater  than  in 
man.  Should  she  be  a  neuropath  primarily,  she  is  well-nigh 
beyond  moral  redemption.  It  requires  only  opportunity  and 
temptation  to  degrade  her  to  the  uttermost  limit.  To  obtain  the 
drug  she  will  descend  to  the  very  depths  of  depravity.  When 
under  its  influence,  and  especially  after  the  period  of  nerve- 
degeneracy  has  been  established,  there  is  no  phase  of  vice  and 
petty  crime  into  which  she  cannot  be  led.  If  one  would  see  the 
picture  as  it  is,  let  him  visit  some  of  our  opium  dens.  I  remember 
seeing  on  one  occasion  a  narcotized  group  composed  of  several 
Chinamen,  a  supposedly  reputable  woman,  two  prostitutes,  and  a 
boy  of  sixteen,  huddled  together  in  a  most  promiscous  fashion 
in  various  degrees  of  stupefaction  and  deshabille.  There  were 
"  no  opium  dens  in  the  city"  at  the  time,  so  the  authorities 
claimed.  The  police  official  who  conducted  me,  and  I,  thought 
differently. 

In  some  cases  insomnia,  dyspepsia,  severe  headaches,  and 
constipation  develop,  and  are  associated  with  mental  disturbance, 


THE    CHEMISTRY   OF    SOCIAL   DISEASES     209 

great  melancholy,  suspicions,  delusions,  and  hallucinations  of 
sight  and  hearing.  Suicidal,  or  even  homicidal,  mania  may  rarely 
occur.  The  latter  is  especially  liable  to  develop  if  alcohol  be 
superadded  to  the  opium. 

Crimes  of  impulse  are  not  frequent  in  narcotic  habitues,  yet 
they  do  occur.  They  are  of  an  intense,  explosive  nature,  of 
which  the  fury  of  the  hasheesh-eater  is  the  type.  This  action  of 
cannabis  indica  is  well  known.  Fortunately,  opium  rarely  acts 
in  a  similar  manner.  Such  crimes  as  forgery  and  swindling  are 
not  infrequent  in  opium-eaters.  They  seem  to  get  enjoyment 
from  crimes  requiring  great  deception  and  secretiveness.  True 
kleptomania  is  occasionally  developed  by  it  in  women.  This  must 
not  be  confused  with  ordinary  thieving. 

Cocaine  has  been  a  very  dangerous  addition  to  our  therapeutic 
armamentarium.  Deadlier  than  morphine,  less  reliable  in  its 
action,  and  liable  to  kill  without  warning,  it  has  nevertheless  been 
hailed  with  delight  by  the  degenerate,  and,  alas !  by  the  sufferer 
who  does  not  belong  to  the  army  of  degenerates.  Primarily, 
cocaine  is  more  stimulating  than  opium.  Intellectual  brilliancy, 
increased  physical  energy  and  capacity  for  sustained  mental 
effort,  beautiful  thought  imagery,  fanciful  yet  coherent  flights  of 
imagination,  relief  of  psychic  pain,  surcease  of  sorrow, — any  or 
all  of  these  remarkable  effects  may  accrue  from  the  action  of 
cocaine.  But  the  debit  side  of  the  ledger  is  a  terrible  record  in- 
deed :  Death,  as  sudden  and  unexpected  as  a  crash  of  thunder 
from  a  clear  sky,  produced  by  a  single  minute  dose  of  the  deadly 
drug, — this  alone  should  warn  both  physician  and  laity  against 
too  great  familiarity  with  cocaine.  Prostration,  mental  depres- 
sion, nervous  irritability,  vacillation  of  the  mind,  hallucinations, 
delusions  of  persecution,  violent  outbursts  of  temper, — these  are 
the  more  prominent  evils  following  in  the  wake  of  the  cocaine 
habit.  Physical,  mental,  and  moral  wreckage  are  as  certain  as 
from  opium,  and  occur  much  earlier.  What  has  been  said  of 
opium  is  equally  pertinent  with  regard  to  cocaine.  The  latter 
drug,  however,  is  peculiar  in  that  it  may  lead  to  crimes  perpe- 
trated in  self-defence  against  an  imaginary  foe.  A  violent 
homicidal  impulse  may  thus  be  developed. 

14 


2IO  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

Ether  drinking  is  more  frequent  than  might  be  supposed. 
What  has  been  said  of  alcohol  applies  equally  to  ether. 

Chloral  and  the  bromides  are  intensely  depressing,  and  quite 
as  demoralizing  to  the  brain  faculties  as  any  of  the  foregoing 
drugs.  The  mental  and  moral  disaster  resulting  from  bromides 
is  only  too  evident  in  the  treatment  of  epilepsy.  Petty  vice  and 
criminality,  rather  than  crimes  of  impulse,  characterize  habitues 
of  chloral  and  the  bromides.  Profound  melancholy  with  suicidal 
tendencies  are  not  unusual. 

The  tremendous  consumption  of  the  coal-tar  products,  such 
as  antipyrin  and  phenacetin,  has  not  been  without  its  influence  in 
adding  to  the  neuropathy  of  the  public  at  large.  The  danger  to 
the  physical  constitution  and  moral  sense  of  habitues  of  the  coal- 
tar  series  is  sufficiently  obvious.  The  indiscriminate  dosing  with 
these  drugs  that  is  going  on  is  most  reprehensible.  Numerous 
proprietary  remedies  containing  them  are  on  the  market,  under 
the  guise  of  antipain  remedies.  The  self-dosing  thereby  induced 
is  doing  great  harm.  The  responsibility  for  this  should  be  equally 
divided  between  the  doctor  who  prescribes  such  remedies  desig- 
nated by  trade  names  or  hieroglyphics,  the  avaricious  proprietary 
medicine-man,  and  the  counter-prescribing  druggist. 

The  relation  of  narcotic  inebriety  to  degeneracy  is  a  double 
one.  Not  only  is  degeneracy  a  cause  of  narcotic  habit  through 
lack  of  will-power  to  resist  the  temptation  to  use  the  drug,  once 
its  fascinations  have  been  experienced,  but  it  causes  degeneracy  in 
the  offspring  of  habitues,  as  well  as  accentuating  any  primary 
degeneracy  that  may  be  transmitted  by  the  parent.  Children  born 
of  opium-eating  mothers  are  afflicted  by  nervous  symptoms,  such 
as  convulsions  and  delirium,  and  are  likely  to  die  unless  opium  be 
administered  to  them.  Should  they  survive,  they  are  distinctly 
neuropathic  and  their  longevity  is  short.  In  a  manner  they 
resemble  the  children  of  alcoholics,  save  that  the  immediate 
results  are  not  so  prominent  in  the  latter. 

One  of  the  most  demoralizing  drugs  used  as  a  stimulant  is 
absinthe.  The  wide-spread  consumption  of  this  nerve-shattering 
decoction  of  wormwood  in  France  is  responsible  for  much  of  the 
nerve-degeneracy  and  moral  perversion  of  the  French  nation. 


THE   CHEMISTRY   OF    SOCIAL   DISEASES     211 

The  relation  of  absinthe-drinking  to  vice  and  crime  in  France  is 
by  no  means  indefinite.  In  confirmed  absinthe  inebriates,  epilep- 
tiform convulsions  are  not  unusual.  The  effects  of  absinthe 
combine  the  action  of  alcohol  with  that  of  wormwood. 

AUTOTOXEMIA   AND   CRIME 

Modern  investigations  of  the  biochemistry  of  the  animal  body, 
and  of  autointoxication  in  general,  have  developed  some  of  the 
most  interesting  and  valuable  of  the  recent  additions  to  medical 
science.  That  organic  and  inorganic  poisons  of  greater  or  less 
degree  of  toxicity  are  developed  or  retained  in  the  human  body  as 
a  consequence  of  perverted  metabolism,  improper  food,  defective 
respiration,  faulty  elimination,  deranged  glandular  action,  or 
bacterial  action  in  the  tissues  and  viscera,  especially  in  the  gastro- 
intestinal tract,  is  now  generally  accepted.  The  application  of 
the  various  toxemias  thereby  produced  to  the  etiology  of  vice  and 
crime  may  seem,  at  first  sight,  far-fetched ;  but  tolerant  and 
critical  reflection  should  put  it  in  a  different  light.  The  physio- 
logic or  pathologic  effects  of  poisons  vary  both  in  degree  and 
kind,  but  in  sufficient  doses  they  are  sure  and  certain.  Granting 
that  what  has  been  said  of  alcohol  and  narcotic  poisons  in  general 
is  true,  the  logic  of  the  position  I  shall  assume  regarding  auto- 
toxemias  can  hardly  be  disputed,  for  there  is  no  essential  differ- 
ence between  the  action  of  autogenetic  and  heterogenetic  poisons. 
The  tissues  and  organs  do  not  discriminate  between  them.  Each 
class  acts  more  or  less  definitely  upon  the  economy,  albeit  in  its 
own  characteristic  fashion.  We  may,  therefore,  reason  from  the 
known  effects  of  alcohol,  morphine,  cannabis  indica,  cocaine,  and 
other  narcotics  upon  the  brain,  nerves,  and  viscera,  to  the  effects 
— both  known  and  presumed — of  autogenetic  poisons  upon  the 
same  structures.  Structural  disease  and  degenerate  conditions 
of  the  nervous  system  underlie  most  of  the  phenomena  of  vice 
and  crime,  but  the  functional  integrity  of  these  structures  has  a 
basis  that  is  largely  biochemical.  In  many  instances,  where  no 
organic  disease  of  the  central  or  peripheral  nervous  system 
exists,  neuropithi'^  phenomena — psychic,  sensory,  motor,  and 
reflex — are  produced  by  autotoxemia.     Unstable  will  and  cmo- 


212  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

tions,  erratic  impulses,  acute  mania, — perhaps  of  the  homicidal 
variety, — hypochondriasis,  melancholia,  suicidal  tendencies,  con- 
vulsions, delusions  of  persecution,  folic  du  doute,  etc.,  have  long 
been  known  to  be  produced  by  organic  poisons  introduced  from 
without.  Modern  science  is  gradually  developing  the  fact  that 
they  can  be  produced  by  poisons  elaborated  in  the  body. 

The  biochemistry  of  the  human  body  and  our  studies  of 
normal  and  perverted  metabolism  certainly  show  a  theoretic  basis 
for  the  autogenetic  origin  of  neuropathic  disturbances.  Experi- 
mental and  clinical  observations  unquestionably  bear  out  what 
theoretically  we  should  expect  from  such  organic  poisons. 

The  powerful  influence  of  the  sympathetic  system  upon  secre- 
tion, metabolism,  and  elimination  deserves  serious  consideration 
in  this  connection.  The  question  of  autotoxemia  revolves  largely 
around  the  integrity  of  the  sympathetic.  The  effects  of  powerful 
emotions,  such  as  joy,  fear,  anger,  and  grief,  are  far-reaching. 
In  many  cases,  the  effects  of  emotion  are  identical  with  those  of 
surgical  shock, — the  typic  "  insult"  to  the  sympathetic.  The 
reactionary  fever  following  surgical  shock  and  the  so-called  fer- 
ment fever  following  severe  traumatism  are  quite  likely  often  due 
to  metabolic  toxemia.  Twenty  years  ago  I  described  the  fever 
following  severe  trauma  as  "  reactionary,"  without  appreciating 
the  possible  relation  of  perverted  metabolism  to  it.  This  toxemia 
is  sometimes  inextricably  confused  with  wound  infection.  Fright, 
shock,  and  anesthetics  also  often  interfere  with  elimination,  and 
vitiate  the  secretions  of  glandular  organs.  The  effect  of  emotion 
in  elaborating  deadly  toxins  in  the  mother's  milk  is  well  known. 
That  profound  neurasthenia  and  nerve-degeneracy  in  general 
may  follow  psychic  shock  is  well  known.  I  know  of  a  case  of 
fulminant  locomotor  ataxia  apparently  produced  in  this  way. 
That  autotoxemia  from  metabolic  perversion  underlies  these 
cases  is  probable.  In  a  general  way  the  following  propositions 
are  safe,  namely, —  (i)  Nerve-degeneracy,  or  disease,  produces 
instability  of  will  and  perversion  of  the  moral  sense.  (2)  These 
neuropathic  disturbances  are  the  basis  of  vice  and  crime.  (3) 
Anything  that  will  produce  neuropathy  bears  a  causal  relation  to 
vice  and  crime.     (4)  As  autotoxemia  is  productive  of  neuro- 


THE   CHEMISTRY   OF    SOCIAL   DISEASES     213 

pathic  conditions,  its  etiologic  relation  to  vice  and  crime  is 
proved. 

Probably  the  most  powerful  factor  in  the  production  of  nerve- 
disorder  is  syphilis.  I  have  long  contended  that  the  neuropathic 
influence  of  this  disease  is  largely  through  a  toxic  eflrect  upon  the 
sympathetic.  My  papers  on  trophoneurosis  in  syphilis  will  be 
recalled  in  this  connection.^  The  impression  is  now  quite  general 
that  tabes  syphilitica,  syphilitic  general  paresis,  and  other  neuro- 
syphilitic  phenomena  are  due  to  the  irritating  and  nutrition- 
perverting  effects  of  toxins  elaborated  during  the  germ  evolution 
of  the  disease.^  Long  before  the  germ  toxins  of  syphilis  were 
talked  of,  I  expressed  the  belief  that  certain  phenomena  of 
syphilis  were  due  to  some  peculiar  action  of  the  infection  upon 
the  nervous  system,  akin  to  the  toxic  effects  of  certain  poisons, 
particularly  the  organic  poisons  of  over-ripe  tomatoes,  bad- 
conditioned  shell-fish,  etc.* 

The  relation  of  the  nerve  phenomena  of  syphilis  to  vice  and 
crime  are  those  of  neuropathy  in  general.  It  is  noteworthy,  how- 
ever, that  in  the  Ohio  State  Penitentiary  seventy  per  cent,  of 
the  convicts  have  syphilis.  The  relation  of  cause  and  effect 
would,  of  course,  be  difficult  to  determine. 

One  of  the  most  striking  and  suggestive  diseases  bearing  upon 
the  relation  of  toxemia  to  vice  and  crime  is  classic  epilepsy.  The 
consensus  of  medical  opinion  at  the  present  day  is  that  the  inter- 
mittent nervous  explosions  characterized  by  convulsions  occur- 
ring in  this  disease  are  due  to  some  autogenetic  irritant  poison  or 
poisons  acting  upon  the  nerve-centres.  The  origin  of  the  toxe- 
mia seems  to  be  perverted  tissue  metabolism  associated  with 
defective  elimination,  more  particularly  as  regards  the  kidneys. 
It  is  probable  that  some  unknown  individual  neurosis  affecting 
the  sympathetic  underlies  both  the  perverted  metabolism  and 
defective  excretion,  the  periodic  explosion  being  a  secondary 


*  Journal  American  Medical  Association,  June  21,  1889;   Transactions 
Southern  Surgical  Association,   1892 ;    Medical  Age,  December  26,   1893. 
'  Vide  Author's  Text-Book  on  Genito-Urinary  Diseases. 
"Lectures  on  Syphilis,  1884. 


214  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

phenomenon  and  not  the  essential  disease.  It  is  hardly  probable 
that  the  toxic  materials  elaborated  in  epilepsy  are  any  different 
from  those  forming  on  occasion  in  other  subjects.  The  differ- 
ence in  results  is  due  to  trophoneurotic  instability  and  inherent 
irritability  of  the  brain  in  the  epileptic. 

The  low  moral  status  of  pronounced  epileptics  is  well  known. 
Epilepsy  among  criminals  is  frequent.  It  does  not  always  cause 
criminality,  for  the  same  nervous  degeneracy  that  underlies  the 
criminality  may  be  also  responsible  for  the  epilepsy.  Epilepsy 
may  lead  to  crime,  however,  for  it  does  lower  the  moral  standard, 
and  invariably  increases  a  tendency  to  vice  and  crime  where  such 
tendencies  primarily  exist.  It  may  directly  cause  crimes  of  im- 
pulse. The  furor  epilepticus,  in  which  the  subject  becomes 
violent  and  destructive,  is  familiar.  Maniacal  outbursts,  with 
homicidal  tendencies,  are  not  infrequent  in  epileptics.  The  typic 
epileptic  seizure  may  be  either  preceded  or  followed  by  violent 
and  dangerous  cerebral  explosions.  Homicidal  outbreaks  may 
replace  the  systematic  attacks.  This  is  the  "  maniacal  equivalent" 
of  epilepsy,  that  is  well  understood  by  alienists.  Here  the  toxins 
act  upon  the  psychic  instead  of  the  motor  areas. 

How  much  of  the  vagaries  and  mental  aberrations  of  the 
insane,  and  consequently  how  much  of  the  misconduct  of  the 
criminal,  is  due  to  autointoxication  is  open  to  question.  That 
toxemia  is  a  factor  in  insanity  is  more  than  probable.  Beyer  has 
shown  by  experiment  the  toxicity  of  the  blood  in  delirium  and 
dementia.  What  particular  toxin  is  responsible  for  delirium, 
epilepsy,  and  their  congeners  is  not  absolutely  proved.  So  far  as 
investigations  have  gone,  the  group  comprising  xanthin,  hypo- 
xanthin,  and  guanin  seems  the  most  probable  cause. 

The  sources  of  toxicity  of  the  blood,  from  a  biochemical 
stand-point,  are  several, — namely,  food  substances,  normal  or 
perverted  tissue  metabolism,  perversion  of  the  function  of  secre- 
tory organs,  putrefaction  and  fermentations  within  the  body, 
and  the  evolution  of  the  germs  of  infectious  disease. 

That  poisons  are  normally  elaborated  in  the  performance  of 
the  physiologic  functions  of  the  animal  body  is  well  known. 
They  are  products  of  retrograde  tissue  change.      When  equ»' 


THE    CHEiMISTRY    OF    SOCIAL    DISEASES     215 

librinm  of  the  functions  is  maintained,  tliese  poisonous  "  normal" 
products  are  harmless.  The  conditions  that  make  them  harmful 
are :  ( i )  Their  elaboration  in  excess.  (2)  Imperfect  elaboration, 
resulting  in  exceedingly  toxic  intermediate  or  by-products.  (3) 
Imperfect  elimination.  This  may  be  due  to  excessive  formation 
or  to  defective  excretory  organs.     (4)  Decreased  disintoxication. 

Exercise  and  alimentation  are  all-important  as  bearing  upon 
the  formation  and  retention  of  toxic  material. 

That  various  diseases  produce  toxins  which  may  result  in 
serious  systemic  disturbances  has  come  to  be  well  understood. 
Infectious  diseases  act  largely  by  the  production  of  germ  toxins 
in  the  tissues,  but  secondarily  through  impairment  of  elimination 
and  the  absorption  of  germ  products  from  areas  of  suppuration, 
or  from  the  stomach  and  bowel. 

Certain  surgical  procedures  are  suspected  of  seriously  per- 
turbing the  biochemistry  of  the  human  body.  Thus,  removal  of 
the  testes  or  ovaries  is  often  followed  by  serious  nervous  disturb- 
ance, even  mania  being  occasionally  produced.  Cessation  of  the 
formation  and  absorption  into  the  circulation  of  some  unknown 
internal  secretion  necessary  to  general  nerve-integrity  is  held  re- 
sponsible for  this.  That  this  view  is  not  fanciful  is  shown  by  the 
production  of  myxedema  and  pseudocretinism  by  removal  of  the 
thyroid  gland,  and  by  the  cure  of  both  pseudo-  and  true  cretinism 
through  the  administration  of  thyroid  extract.  Spontaneous  de- 
generation or  tumor  formation  in  the  thyroid  produces  a  similar 
effect. 

In  myxedema  the  various  psychoses  are  produced  by  an 
indirect  intoxication, — i.e.,  presumably  by  deficient  disintoxica- 
tion. The  blood  normally  contains  a  substance  that  can  inhibit 
metabolism ;  this  substance  is  toxic,  and  is  controlled  by  the 
thyroid  secretion.  Too  much  thyroid,  as  in  exophthalmic  goitre, 
neutralizes  this  body  completely,  consequently  metabolism  is  not 
inhibited,  but  accelerated.  On  the  other  hand,  in  myxedema, 
there  is  no  control  of  this  inhibition,  and  metabolism  is  retarded. 
This  is  an  indirect  intoxication. 

Diseases  of  the  kidney,  liver,  spleen,  intestines,  ovary,  and 
testis  have  a  double  influence  on  human  biochemistry.    There  is 


2i6  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

not  only  a  perversion  or  cessation  of  glandular  secretion,  but  there 
is  a  reflex  effect  upon  the  great  sympathetic,  or  upon  its  trophic 
function,  that  acts  upon  general  metabolism  and  the  secretion  of 
organs  correlated,  via  the  sympathetic. 

Prostatic  disease  is  a  special  cause  of  nervous  disturbance  in 
the  male.  It  produces  a  most  profound  impression  upon  the 
sympathetic,  and  consequently  upon  general  metabolism.  That 
local  perversion  of  secretion  has  something  to  do  with  the  result- 
ing phenomena  I  feel  confident.  I  refer,  of  course,  to  the  prostate 
during  the  period  of  sexual  activity.  The  extent  to  which  prostatic 
irritation  enters  into  the  etiology  of  vice  and  crime  is  by  no  means 
appreciated.  Prostatic  pathology  is  often  associated  with  the 
most  profound  disturbances  of  the  nervous  system.  The  men- 
tality of  men  with  prostatic  irritation  is  rarely,  if  ever,  well 
balanced.  Suicide,  sexual  vice,  and  varying  degrees  of  neuras- 
thenia often  have  their  foundation  in  an  irritable,  congested,  or 
inflamed  prostate. 

Probably  the  most  important  of  the  general  conditions  due  to 
perverted  biochemism  and  acting  profoundly  upon  the  nervous 
system  is  lithemia.  In  this  condition  of  retarded  metabolism  there 
is  an  accumulation  of  abnormal  products  in  the  blood  and  tissues 
that  should  normally  be  oxidized.  This  retention  is  a  reversion 
to  a  lower  type,  for  in  lower  animals  we  find  many  of  these 
products — which  in  man  are  intermediary  and  should  lead  to 
higher  urinary  products — excreted  in  the  urine  as  terminal 
products. 

The  multiform  effects  of  lithemia  are  well  known.  Scarcely 
a  symptom  of  nerve  disorder  but  has  been  attributed  to  it.  Neu- 
ralgias, neurasthenia,  migraine,  paralysis,  mental  disturbances, 
more  especially  irritability  of  temper, — so-called  "  suppressed 
gout"  coming  into  play  here, — moroseness,  melancholy,  and  hypo- 
chondriasis, are  the  chief  resulting  conditions  bearing  upon  the 
vice  and  crime  problem. 

Renal  disturbance,  organic  or  functional,  is  intimately  asso- 
ciated with  lithemia  as  a  cause  or  result  of  the  general  disorder. 
I  will  not  discuss  the  mooted  question  of  the  particular  toxemia 
existing  in  renal  disease.     Suffice  it  to  say  that,  as  a  result  of 


THE   CHEMISTRY   OF   SOCIAL   DISEASES    217 

impairment  of  the  renal  functions,  certain  excrementitious  prod- 
ucts of  metabolism  and  secretory  action  of  the  kidney  itself  are 
not  excreted.  The  retention  of  these  toxic  materials  in  the  blood 
and  tissues  causes  the  varying  degrees  of  so-called  uremia,  or 
"  urinemia."  The  nerve-phenomena  of  this  toxemia  are  only 
too  familiar.  Mental  disturbances  are  not  rare.  Actual  insanity 
may  be  caused  by  it.  The  morale  of  the  subject  is  usually  pro- 
foundly disturbed.  The  mania  of  puerperal  women,  sometimes 
leading  to  infanticide,  is  partially  explained  by  it.  Disturbances 
of  the  organs  of  special  sense  are  frequent.  These  latter  may  be 
functional  or  organic.  Muscular  twitchings,  impairment  of  the 
faculty  of  attention,  and  drowsiness  are  not  rare.  Convulsions 
and  coma  are  the  serious  phenomena  attending  the  falling  of  the 
curtain. 

Irritability  of  temper,  suspicional  delusions,  and  suicidal 
tendencies  are  not  unknown  among  persons  suffering  from 
kidney  disease. 

The  impression  is  growing  that  neurasthenia  is  due  mainly  to  ' 
autointoxication  of  one  kind  or  another.  Lithemia  often  bears  a 
close  relation  to  it.  Toxemia  from  the  absorption  of  gastro- 
intestinal products  is  also  a  factor,  often,  perhaps,  the  principal 
one.  The  effects  of  worry  and  overwork  upon  the  nervous  system 
are  well  known.  That  the  impression  made  upon  the  sympa- 
thetic via  the  cerebrospinal  system  results  in  perverted  secretion, 
excretion,  and  metabolism  is  quite  likely.  The  resulting  toxemia 
feeds  the  pathologic  fire,  and  many  of  the  symptoms  depend 
directly  upon  it.  The  bearing  of  neurasthenia  upon  vice  and  crime 
is  self-evident.  The  loss  of  nerve  equilibrium  may  often  be  held 
responsible  for  serious  moral  lapses.  Suicidal  tendencies  are  not 
rare  in  neurasthenics.  Alcoholic  and  narcotic  inebriety  are  fre- 
quent in  them.  The  intimate  relation  of  the  strenuous  American 
life  to  vice  and  crime  is  largely  through  the  neurasthenia  it 
produces.. 

Vicariously  eliminated  urinary  poisons  produce  such  marked 
irritation  of  other  tissues,  as  seen  in  the  diarrhea,  vomiting,  and 
skin  eruptions  of  urinemics,  that  the  most  disastrous  effects  upon 
the  nervous  and  mental  functions  should  be  expected  from  their 


2i8  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

retention  in  the  blood.  The  sudden  and  complete  blindness  re- 
sulting from  cerebral  urinemic  intoxication  is  illustrative  in  this 
connection. 

Abnormal  fermentive  and  putrefactive  processes  in  the  gastro- 
intestinal tract  unquestionably  produce  autotoxemia,  with  serious 
involvement  of  the  nerve-centres.  Granting  a  resulting  dis- 
turbance of  the  morale  of  the  subject,  the  relation  of  bacteria  to 
vice  and  crime  is  not  absurdly  far-fetched.  Gastro-intestinal 
toxins  often  produce  fatigue,  headache,  tinnitus  aurium,  deafness, 
visual  disturbances,  and  vertigo.  Fecal  absorption  in  constipated 
subjects  and  the  retention  in  the  blood  of  matter  which  should  be 
eliminated  by  the  bowel  are  often  responsible  for  serious  nerve- 
intoxication. 

I  have  recently  had  under  my  care  a  young  physician  who 
developed  several  degrees  of  fever  and  serious  mental  impair- 
ment associated  with  loss  of  will  and  memory,  as  a  result  of  pro- 
longed constipation.  My  attention  was  especially  attracted  by  the 
patient's  misstatements  regarding  his  history  and  condition.  His 
condition  in  general  resembled  a  mild  delirium  of  typhoid.  He 
himself  afterwards  called  attention  to  the  unreliability  of  all  state- 
ments that  he  made  while  ill. 

Cases  of  acute  confusional  insanity  have  resulted  from  consti- 
pation. A  certain  proportion  of  persons  committed  to  the  asylum 
would  better  be  treated  by  a  mercurial  purge  followed  by  a 
saline.  That  constipation  often  aggravates  cases  of  indubitable 
insanity  is  hardly  open  to  controversy. 

It  is  noteworthy  in  this  connection  that  the  delirium  of  fevers 
and  septic  infection  in  general  is  fairly  attributable  to  cerebral 
excitation  from  autotoxemia  associated  with  germ  toxemia. 
Imperfect  elimination  and  rapid  tissue-combustion,  with  its  poi- 
sonous products,  enter  into  the  etiology  of  the  delirium.  Suicide 
and  violent  assaults,  perhaps  homicidal  in  character,  are  not 
unfamiliar  phenomena  in  fevers. 

Diseases  of  the  liver  bear  a  very  important  relation  to  auto- 
toxemia. The  old-time  doctor,  with  his  lancet,  purges,  dia- 
phoretics, and  emetics,  was  by  no  means  a  fool.  He  knew  the 
relation  of  "peccant"  materials  to  disease.     He  also  knew  the 


THE    CHEMISTRY    OF    SOCIAL    DISEASES     219 

shortest  cut  to  elimination.  Possibly  he  was  not  far  wrong  when 
he  attributed  so  many  ills  to  the  liver.  Bouchard  claims  that  the 
biliary  extractives  are  six  times  as  toxic  as  the  urinary.  The 
old  diagnosis  of  "  malaise,"  with  "  sluggish  liver,"  was  perhaps 
Jogical  enough.  At  any  rate,  when  the  old  doctor  was  confronted 
with  a  patient  suffering  from  headache,  constipation,  furred 
tongue,  bad  breath,  loss  of  appetite,  and  melancholy  or  irrita- 
bility of  temper,  he  knew  what  to  do  and  did  it.  There  is  nothing 
new  under  the  sun ;  an  old-fashioned  fit  of  the  "  blues"  is  nowa- 
days known  to  be  often  associated  with  indicanuria,  showing 
autointoxication.  The  coincidence  of  the  popular  name  with 
the  blue  organic  poison  is  amusing. 

Dyspepsia,  from  a  dilated  stomach,  especially,  is  likely  to  be 
associated  with  nervous  troubles.  Irritability  of  temper  resulting 
in  crimes  of  impulse  are  not  unlikely  to  have  dyspepsia  as  their 
basis  in  some  cases.  The  physical  and  mental  debility  chargeable 
to  dyspepsia  are  often  erroneously  attributed  to  laziness, — "  the 
mother  of  mischief."  The  liver  and  kidney  are  secondarily 
deranged  in  such  cases,  enhancing  the  toxemia.  Autointoxica- 
tion and  the  absorption  of  crude  products  of  digestion  are  here 
associated  with  nerve  and  brain  starvation.  The  patient  may  or 
may  not  eat  well ;  in  either  event  his  nerve-tissues  are  not 
properly  nourished. 

While  experiments  upon  animals  have  not  conclusively  shown 
the  precise  relation  of  any  given  autogenetic  poison  to  a  particular 
disease,  they  have,  nevertheless,  definitely  proved  the  toxic  action 
of  certain  principles  formed  in  the  human  body.  Fecal  ex- 
tractives, biliary  coloring-matters,  various  urinary  extractives, — 
especially  the  alloxuric  bases,  comprising  xanthin,  hypoxanthin, 
guanin,  and  other  congeners  of  uric  acid, — indican,  and  the 
potassa  and  soda  salts  have  been  proved  to  have  a  powerfully 
toxic  effect  on  the  nerve-centres.  Convulsions,  local  or  general, 
myosis,  and  death  result  from  some  of  them. 

The  particular  chemical  substances  producing  toxemic  phe- 
nomena concern  us  here  only  in  a  general  way.  To  each  of 
seven  d'A^^er^nt  poisons  credit  has  been  given.  They  probably 
act  coniointlv  in  some  cases.     Suffice  it  to  sav  that  the  toxic 


220  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

materials  come  from  the  various  sources  already  enumerated, 
and  act  more  or  less  viciously  upon  the  nerve-centres.  The  toxic 
principles  due  to  defective  or  perverted  metabolism,  to  normal 
metabolism  with  defective  elimination,  to  perverted  secretory 
action,  or  to  absorption  of  putrefactive  products  and  bacterial 
products  from  the  bowel,  are  mainly  organic,  but,  as  already 
stated,  inorganic  materials,  such  as  potassium,  sodium,  and  cal- 
cium in  various  combinations,  may  have  much  to  do  with  auto- 
intoxication. 

Indican  has  been  shown  to  be  the  substance  chiefly  at  fault  in 
toxemia  from  abnormal  gastro-intestinal  fermentations  and 
putrefactions.  The  products  of  changes  in  proteid,  both  from  the 
food  and  tissues,  are  of  especial  toxic  importance.  Urea  has 
been  displaced  from  its  position  as  the  uncrowned  king  of  auto- 
genetic  poisons  by  substances  formed  by  imperfect  oxidation. 
The  xanthin  group  is  here  of  especial  importance. 

It  is  inconceivable  that  toxic  principles  producing  experi- 
mentally severe  nervous  phenomena  should  not  produce  more  or 
less  serious  functional  perturbations  of  the  brain.  Clinical  ex- 
perience shows  their  causal  relation  to  defective  will,  melancholia, 
hypochondria,  irritability  of  temper,  insanity,  and  unstable  mental 
equilibrium  in  general.  Adding  these  effects  to  primary  neu- 
ropathy, and  also  taking  into  consideration  the  fact  that  degen- 
erates are  especially  liable  to  the  conditions  producing  auto- 
intoxication, the  relation  between  autotoxemia  and  breaches  of 
social  ethics  is  readily  understood.  The  relation  of  autotoxemia 
to  vice  and  crime  is,  therefore,  one  of  action  and  reaction. 

The  relation  of  autointoxication  to  murder,  suicide,  and 
crimes  of  impulse  in  general  seems  definite  enough.  It  may  not 
be  often  effective  in  persons  otherwise  sound,  but  in  nervous 
defectives  the  dangers  of  autotoxemia  are  sufficiently  obvious. 
The  predisposition  existing,  autointoxication  does  the  rest.  In 
the  case  of  suicides,  especially,  the  complete  overthrow  of  mental 
equilibrium  by  autointoxication  in  subjects  of  primary  unstable 
mentality — whether  congenital  or  the  result  of  acquired  disease 
— can  be  readily  understood.  Alcohol  might  act  similarly,  if 
taken  for  a  long  time,  and  to  excess.    Even  here,  autointoxica- 


THE   CHEMISTRY   OF    SOCIAL   DISEASES     221 

tion  is  a  powerful  factor.  It  is  always  a  factor  in  alcoholism. 
An  attack  of  the  "  blues"  is  bad  enough  in  well-balanced  subjects. 
In  degenerates  or  sufferers  from  disease,  it  may  precipitate  the 
unstable  brain  into  psychic  suffering  for  which  only  the  open 
door  to  the  Great  Beyond  seems  to  offer  relief. 

The  marked  ratio  of  increase  in  suicide  in  the  United  States 
in  the  last  decade  has  for  its  basis  the  neurodegeneracy  produced 
by  the  nerve-racking  high  pressure  of  social  and  industrial  con- 
ditions now  prevailing.  Our  proportion  of  neuropaths  is  well 
known  to  be  on  the  increase.  Given  this  general  state  of  unstable 
nerve  and  brain  equilibrium,  autointoxication  from  disturbance 
of  sympathetic  physiology,  acting  viciously  on  the  brain,  will 
logically  explain  a  certain  proportion  of  our  suicides. 

If  the  foregoing  premises  be  correct,  vice  and  crime  will  one 
day  be  shown  more  definitely  than  ever  to  be  a  matter  to  be  dealt 
with  by  medical  science  rather  than  by  law. 

Whether  the  biochemistry  of  the  criminal  will  ever  be  shown 
to  be  different  from  other  individuals  similarly  situated  may  be 
seriously  questioned.  Marro  and  Ottolenghi  have  made  a  series 
of  observations  upon  metabolism  in  criminals,  but  have  succeeded 
in  showing  only  an  increased  elimination  of  phosphoric  acid,  a 
condition  that  had  previously  been  demonstrated  in  chronic 
alcoholism.* 

REMEDIES 

A  detailed  account  of  the  various  means  for  the  cure  of  in- 
ebriety does  not  come  within  the  scope  of  this  volume.  A  few 
general  remarks,  however,  may  not  be  out  of  place.  The 
inebriate  should  be  regarded  as  a  sick  person.  Methods  of  treat- 
ment of  the  inebriate  that  do  not  take  into  account  the  physical 
side  of  the  question  are  irrational.  I  make  this  assertion,  despite 
the  fact  that  psychic  impressions  have  many  cures  to  their 
credit.  Many  subjects  have  been  cured  by  powerful  emotional 
impressions.  Religious  emotion,  and  psychic  shocks  of  various 
kinds  often  cure  inebriety.    The  psychic  element  is  always  to  be 


*  Ottolenghi,  Archivio  di  Psichiatria,  1886,  No.  iv. 


222  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

considered,  for  without  its  co-operation  treatment  is  futile.  The 
much-vaunted  Keeley  "  cure"  probably  depends  largely  upon 
psychic  impressions  and  suggestion.  The  regular  life  imposed 
at  the  various  "  institutes"  has  much  to  do  with  modifying  the 
physical  condition  of  the  drunkard.  I  am  not  in  a  position  to 
speak  dogmatically  of  the  Keeley  remedies,  as  they  are  secret. 
There  are  certain  drugs,  however,  which,  as  is  well  known,  are 
valuable  adjuvants  in  the  treatment  of  inebriety.  No  argument 
can  convince  me  that  the  Keeley  treatment  has  not  been  of  ser- 
vice to  humanity.  There  have  been  many  relapses,  the  method 
may  be  a  "  fake,"  and  some  damage  has  been  done,  it  is  true,  but 
the  sum  total  of  years  of  sobriety  acquired  by  drunkards  all  over 
the  world  has  been  large.  Whatever  may  be  said  to  its  discredit, 
the  Keeley  cure  has  impressed  the  laity  with  the  physical  aspect 
of  inebriety,  and  has  popularized  medical  and  institutional  treat- 
ment. Institutional  treatment  by  means  designed  to  build  up 
the  general  health,  such  as  hj'drotherapy,  electricity,  dietetics, 
exercise,  and  massage,  brings  about  the  best  results,  on  the 
average.  Nervous  equilibrium  is  often  restored  thereby,  with 
resulting  improvement  in  will-power. 

The  key-note  of  the  inebriety  problem  is  prevention.  All 
measures  thus  far  instituted  have  ignominiously  failed.  At  first 
sight  it  would  seem  that  restriction  of  the  manufacture  and  sale 
of  alcoholics  would  accomplish  much.  The  experience  of  pro- 
hibition States  has  been  apparently  discouraging  in  this  direc- 
tion. The  general  government,  the  State,  and  the  municipality 
have  been  levying  blackmail  on  the  liquor  trade  for  many  years. 
The  heavy  governmental  tak  is  such  a  rich  source  of  income  that 
our  political  machines  would  be  loath  to  relinquish  it.  Were  the 
tax  raised  to  the  prohibitive  point,  there  would  be  such  a  howl 
from  the  voter  that  the  government  would  be  glad  to  fall  back  to 
the  old  standard.  That  standard  is,  as  much  blackmail  as  the 
liquor  traffic  can  stand  and  yet  exist.  Should  the  liquor  traffic 
ever  become  obnoxious  to  the  majority  of  voters  in  this  country, 
there  would  soon  be  no  more  liquor  traffic.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
the  majority  of  our  people  favor  it.  This  is  the  insuperable 
obstacle  at  present  lying  in  the  way  of  reform.    The  fact  that 


THE    CHEMISTRY    OF    SOCIAL    DISEASES     223 

Vermont  has  just  voted  prohibition  out  of  existence  in  that  State 
is  pertinent  here.  The  juggler  with  statistics  and  the  idiot  who 
preaches  "  wine  for  the  stomach's  sake"  are  further  stumbUng- 
blocks.  The  man  who  weighs  other  men  in  his  own  physical  and 
moral  balance,  and  mouths  loudly  of  "  moderation,"  is  also  an 
obstructionist.  The  Pharisee,  who  uses  the  "  holier  than  thou" 
principle  as  an  explanation  of  his  own  sobriety,  is  by  no  means  a 
stimulus  to  reform.  Preaching  and  moral  influences,  in  general, 
have  done  much  individual  good,  but  King  Alcohol  still  sits 
firmly  on  his  throne.  And  his  prosperity  is  on  the  increase,  if 
anything.  With  society  behind  him,  and  an  "  incompetent"  born 
every  other  minute,  he  should  never  lack  for  subjects. 

The  action  of  municipalities  on  the  liquor  question  would  be 
amusing  were  it  not  disgusting.  A  license  is  given  to  the  dealer 
in  liquor  that  ostensibly  puts  him  upon  the  same  moral  plane  as 
that  occupied  by  other  licensed  occupations,  but  he  pays  dearly 
for  his  license.  A  heavy  special  tax  is  thus  put  upon  his  business, 
which  is  tantamount  to  an  admission  that  the  liquor  traffic  is 
immoral  and  subject  to  blackmail.  In  some  communities  the 
fashion  is  to  stamp  the  liquor  traffic  as  legal,  blackmail  it  heavily, 
and  then  compel  the  dealer  to  close  his  place  of  business  on  Sun- 
day,— often  the  most  profitable  of  his  business  days.  And  this 
passes  for  an  attempt  at  reform,  protection  of  the  public,  and 
regulation  of  the  liquor  traffic.  I  make  no  comment  save  that 
discrimination  against  the  dispenser  of  alcoholics  is  absurd.  A 
traffic  that  is  moral  and  legal  on  six  days  of  the  week  should  not 
be  illegal,  nor  is  it  immoral,  on  the  seventh.  If  the  law  of  supply 
and  demand  justifies  a  traffic  of  any  kind  seven  days  in  the  week, 
there  is  no  reason  why  it  should  not  continue,  once  it  is  licensed, 
unless  the  license  itself  is  restricted  in  its  scope  to  week  days. 
This  latter  plan  is  the  only  logical  solution  of  the  Sunday  liquor 
problem. 

Even  were  more  stringent  regulation  of  the  manufacture  and 
sale  of  liquor  put  in  practice  it  would  be  of  questionable  value, 
for  its  practicality  would  be  based  upon  the  opinion  of  the 
majority  of  the  people,  and  with  the  opinion  of  the  majority 
against  it,  the  liquor  traffic  would  adjust  itself  to  the  law  of 


224  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

supply  and  demand,  and  restrictive  legislation  would  be  super- 
fluous. Under  present  conditions  no  great  practical  good  can 
come  of  restrictions  placed  upon  the  rights  of  the  people  to  buy, 
sell,  and  drink  liquor.  Infringement  of  personal  rights  breeds 
resentment.  Resentment  breeds  indulgence,  by  "  hook  or  crook." 
Such  is  human  nature.  Drinking  is  general  in  homes  and  at 
hotels  and  restaurant  tables.  The  social  glass  is  in  fashion,  and 
the  public  at  large  is  well  aware  of  it.  The  public  also  has  its 
craving  for  stimulants,  and  resents  any  discrimination  against  it 
and  in  favor  of  a  privileged  class  of  drinkers  in  fashionable 
society.  The  only  practicable  legal  regulation  would  be  such  as 
would  prescribe  and  enforce  a  purity  standard.  Much  of  the 
damage  done  by  liquor  is  chargeable  to  impure  quality. 

In  my  opinion,  the  remedy  for  inebriety  lies  in  the  physical 
training  and  education  of  the  masses.  Every  child  should  be 
taught  at  least  the  rudiments  of  physiology  and  chemistry.  The 
properties  of  alcohol  should  be  taught — and  impressively.  The 
drug  should  be  taught  for  what  it  really  is,  a  poison,  that  is  not 
only  unnecessary  to  the  human  economy  but  injurious — in  vary- 
ing degrees,  but  always  injurious.  Children  should  understand 
that  alcohol  is  a  drug  that  is  useful  in  the  arts  and  manufactures, 
and  sometimes  of  service  in  the  treatment  of  disease,  but  one 
which  ought  to  be  taken  into  the  human  body  with  the  greatest 
circumspection  and  under  medical  advice.  An  appeal  to  the 
selfishness  of  the  individual  by  exalting  physical  perfection  and 
showing  that  the  use  of  alcohol  is  incompatible  with  it  should 
always  be  made.  There  is  but  little  use  in  laying  stress  upon  the 
evils  of  alcohol  from  the  moral  stand-point  alone.  Youth  is  imi- 
tative, and  the  object-lessons  afforded  by  its  elders,  who  con- 
form with  social  custom,  are  more  powerful  than  preaching. 
A  youth  may  possibly  be  convinced  that  his  father  is  mistaken 
in  his  ideas  and  customs,  for  youth  has  an  intensified  ego.  but 
any  effort  to  prove  the  evil  of  his  father's  ways  will  not  only  be 
lost  upon  him,  but  doubtless  will  serve  only  to  arouse  his  antag- 
onism. I  do  not  say  that  moral  and  religious  persuasion  is  not. 
in  a  measure,  deterrent  of  the  liquor  habit, — the  Sunday-school 
has  its  sphere  of  usefulness, — but  it  should  occupy  a  position 


THE   CHEMISTRY    OF    SOCIAL   DISEASES     225 

subordinate  to  the  rational  education  of  youth  in  the  physical 
evils  of  alcohol.  The  general  results  of  moral  influences  have 
not  been  what  they  should  be,  because  of  the  lack  of  scientific 
materialism  behind  them. 

Physicians  can  do  much  to  discourage  the  alcohol  habit  by 
promulgating  sound  knowledge  of  its  evils  among  the  laity. 
They  can  also  do  much  good  by  prescribing  liquor  as  rarely  as 
possible,  and  with  discrimination  in  all  cases.  In  many  instances 
the  physician  should  know  at  a  glance  that  the  individual  courts 
danger  when  he  takes  alcoholics,  even  as  a  medicine. 

Apropos  of  the  question  of  "  moderate  drinking,"  it  is  only 
just  that  a  special  point  bearing  upon  it  should  be  considered. 
One  of  the  most  impractical  movements  of  American  moral  re- 
formers of  recent  years  has  been  the  crusade  against  the  army 
canteen.  From  practical  observations  I  have  concluded  that  the 
canteen  is  disastrous  to  volunteer  regiments.  The  best  record 
made  by  any  volunteer  regiment  during  the  Spanish-American 
War,  from  the  disability  and  mortality  stand-point,  was  by  an 
Illinois  organization,  the  colonel  of  which  would  not  permit  the 
establishment  of  a  canteen.  In  my  own  experience  with  volun- 
teers, pay-day  was  followed  within  a  week  by  seventy-five  per 
cent,  increase  in  the  sick-list,  directly  or  indirectly  attributable  to 
drinking  at  the  post  canteen.  Volunteer  soldiers  are  careless  in 
habits,  know  little  about  caring  for  their  bodily  condition,  and 
are  comparatively  undisciplined.  The  regular  soldier  is  directly 
the  opposite.  When  he  has  access  to  beer  and  light  wines  in  the 
canteen — which  is  the  soldiers'  club — he  rarely  drinks  to  excess. 
Indeed,  he  is  not  permitted  to  do  so.  In  posts  near  large  cities 
and  towns  where  the  canteen  has  been  abolished  the  soldiers 
frequent  the  drinking-  and  gambling-dens  and  brothels  outside. 
Cheap  whiskey,  cards,  and  gross  immorality  are  his  indulgences, 
when  the  milder  dissipations  and  comforts  of  the  canteen  are 
denied  him.  There  has  been  a  marked  increase  in  drunkenness, 
disorderly  conduct,  vice,  crime,  and  venereal  diseases  in  the 
regular  army  since  canteens  were  abolished.  Under  ordinary 
conditions,  the  canteen  would  be  an  evil. — it  is  hardly  a  blessing 
in  its  remote  eflfects  as  it  is, — but  under  prevailing  conditions,  in 

IS 


226  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

the  regular  service,  it  is  a  minor  evil  as  compared  with  the 
vicious  influences  to  which  the  soldier  turns  as  a  substitute. 

One  of  the  most  important  features  of  the  prophylaxis  of 
inebriety  is  physical  training.  I  will  not  expatiate  upon  this  at 
length  in  this  connection,  as  it  will  receive  exhaustive  attention  in 
another  chapter.  Physical  training  and  the  acquirement  of  a 
sound,  well-developed,  muscular  and  visceral  organization  is,  as 
elsewhere  stated,  accompanied  by  a  corresponding  development 
of  the  nervous  system,  and  especially  the  brain.  Neuropathy  in 
children  and  youths  may  often,  as  elsewhere  stated,  be  corrected 
by  proper  physical  culture.  Improved  nervous  physiology  and 
coincident  increase  of  mental  stability  and  will-power  lessen  the 
primary  appetite  for  stimulants,  and,  in  case  the  subject  chances 
to  be  exposed  to  the  action  of  alcohol,  enable  him  to  resist  more 
effectively  its  seductions. 

What  has  been  said  of  the  prevention  of  alcoholism  bears  with 
equal  force  upon  narcotic  inebriety.  The  responsibility  of  the 
physician  is  here  much  greater  than  in  the  case  of  alcoholics. 
The  greatest  care  should  be  taken  in  prescribing  narcotics,  and  a 
knowledge  of  their  danger  should  be  spread  broadcast.  Much 
greater  restrictions  should  be  placed  upon  their  sale.  This  will 
apply  to  poisons  in  general.  The  would-be  suicide  has  no  diffi- 
culty in  procuring  arsenic  or  carbolic  acid,  and  very  little  in  pur- 
chasing morphine  or  laudanum.  I  have  had  some  amusing 
experiences  in  this  respect.  On  one  occasion  I  asked  a  strange 
druggist  for  a  single  tablet  containing  one  one-hundredth  grain 
of  atropine,  and  one-eighth  grain  of  morphine.  He  refused  to 
sell  it  to  me  until  I  had  written  a  prescription  for  it.  While  I  was 
waiting,  a  woman  entered  the  shop  and  purchased  an  unbroken 
vial  of  one  hundred  one-fourth-grain  morphine  tablets  without 
question. 

The  absurdity  of  a  law  that  permits  morphine  to  be  retailed 
in  bulk  indiscriminately,  yet  prohibits  the  sale  of  small  quantities 
without  a  physician's  prescription,  is  manifest.  It  is,  however, 
a  fair  sample  of  the  intelligence  of  legislation  in  such  matters. 

The  treatment  of  narcotic  inebriety  is  without  my  province.  I 
will  merely  say  that  means  to  correct  or  prevent  degeneracy  and 


THE   CHEMISTRY   OF    SOCIAL    DISEASES     227 

neuropathy  are  of  the  same  importance  here  as  in  the  case  of 
alcoholism.  Proper  institutional  treatment  is  usually  the  narcotic 
habitue's  only  hope.  Unaided  effort  may  check  the  alcohol  ine- 
briate in  his  downward  career,  but  the  victim  of  narcotism,  never. 

In  direct  proportion  as  success  is  met  with  in  the  prevention 
and  cure  of  all  forms  of  inebriety,  and  especially  the  alcoholic, 
will  be  the  results  achieved  in  the  prevention  and  cure  of  the 
various  forms  of  vice  and  crime  dependent  upon  it.  Simul- 
taneously with  diminution  in  the  number  of  inebriates  and  nar- 
cotic habitues  in  a  given  community  will  come  a  lessening  in  the 
proportion  of  the  vicious  and  criminal  classes.  The  lessened  pro- 
portions will  not  precisely  correspond,  because  many  alcoholics 
are  degenerates  whose  morbid  propensities  may  still  lead  to  vice 
and  crime  after  inebriety  has  ceased,  but  the  end  will  always  be 
sufficiently  beneficial  to  society  to  justify  the  means. 

In  every  large  community  there  should  be  a  public  lock  hos- 
pital for  non-criminal  inebriates,  of  whatever  sort.  Society 
should  protect  itself  against  the  evil  influence  of  inebriety  in  pro- 
ducing degeneracy,  vice,  crime,  insanity,  and  disease  in  general. 
The  custom  in  many  of  our  large  cities  is  to  send  drunkards  to 
the  same  institutions  in  which  criminals  are  confined.  Plain 
drunks,  drunken  criminals,  offenders  who  commit  petty  crimes, 
because  they  are  too  drunk  to  know  better,  and  typic  dipso- 
maniacs are  herded  together  with  hardened  criminals.  The  ordi- 
nary "  drunk"  winds  up  in  the  police  station,  and  into  a  cell  he 
goes,  to  enjoy  the  society  and  instruction  of  thieves.  Sometimes 
a  case  of  fractured  skull  lands  in  the  same  good  company.  A 
man  who  is  picked  up  comatose  or  stupid,  with  the  odor  of  liquor 
on  his  breath,  and  a  fractured  skull,  has  very  little  chance  for 
his  life  once  he  falls  into  the  hands  of  the  police. 

Confining  inebriates  in  penal  institutions  is  a  blot  upon  mod- 
ern civilization  and  worthy  of  barbarians.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
law  should  have  absolute,  intelligent,  and  humane  jurisdiction 
over  the  confirmed  inebriate,  based  upon  modern  scientific  prin- 
ciples of  the  nature  and  treatment  of  inebriety.  Altruism  de- 
mands that  the  confirmed  drunkard,  or  morphinomaniac,  who  is 
a  poisonous  ftingus  pn  the  body  social,  should  be  confined  and 


228  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

kept  in  hospital  till  he  is  cured.     The  same  principles  should 
govern  here  as  in  the  management  of  insanity. 

It  is  obvious  that  the  remedy  for  the  autotoxemic  element  in 
the  etiology  of  vice  and  crime  is  the  prevention  or  cure  of  the 
various  conditions  upon  which  the  self-empoisonment  depends. 
The  subject  is  of  the  greatest  moment,  as  showing  the  importance 
of  treating  actual  and  prospective  criminals  upon  the  old  prin- 
ciple of  mens  sana  in  corpore  sano.  The  degenerate,  the  vicious, 
the  criminal,  and  the  insane  are  less  amenable  to  moral  persuasion 
than  ever,  when  suffering  from  autointoxication.  The  difference 
between  an  unruly  and  a  tractable  criminal  or  insane  person  is 
often  determined  by  the  relative  efficiency  of  elimination.  This 
hint  may  be  of  service  to  some  correctionary  institution  manage- 
ments, who  believe  in  treating  souls  rather  than  curing  bodies. 
Possibly  the  seat  of  the  soul  is  nearer  the  machinery  of  meta- 
bolism than  is  generally  supposed. 


CHAPTER    VI 

ANARCHY    IN    ITS    RELATIONS   TO    CRIME 

General  Considerations — The  Chicago  Anarchists — Deeds  against  Rulers 
— Anarchy  in  the  Name  of  Order  and  Social  Revenge — Govern- 
mental Anarchy — Political  Anarchy — Municipal  Anarchy — The  An- 
archy of  Labor — The  Anarchy  of  Capital — The  Anarchy  of  our  Legal 
Machinery — The  Therapeutics  of  Anarchy 

General  Considerations. — As  previously  stated,  the  true 
criminal,  anthropologically  speaking,  is  an  animal  whose  in- 
stincts are  largely  antisocial.  He  is  a  reversionary  product  in 
human  evolution.  In  normal  man  the  social  instinct  is  second 
only  to  that  of  self-preservation,  of  which  it  is  an  outgrowth.  It 
is,  so  to  speak,  the  highest,  most  altruistic  phase  of  the  instinct  of 
self-preservation.  Altruistic  though  it  is  in  result,  its  basis  is 
individual  selfishness.  By  normal  civilized  man  this  selfishness 
is  submerged  in  the  conservation  of  the  common  weal.  In  the 
criminal,  however,  the  ego  is  so  intensified  that  the  benefits  of  a 
social  aggregation  of  interests  is  not  appreciated.  It  will  be  seen, 
therefore,  that,  as  the  term  anarchy  is  popularly  understood, 
every  criminal  may  be  justly  termed  an  anarchist  in  action,  what- 
ever his  theories  of  social  conditions  may  be ;  if,  indeed,  he  has 
any  theories.  Anarchy,  however,  in  the  strictest  sense  of  its  in- 
terpretation, is  not  merely  a  contempt  for  law,  nor  is  its  corner- 
stone infraction  of  the  law.  The  true  anarchist  is  not  a  firebrand, 
but  a  mistaken,  misguided  philosopher,  an  idealist  whose  con- 
ceptions of  what  ought  to  be  are  not  in  harmony  with  what  is. 
"  Whatever  is,  is  right,"  is  not  his  creed.  "  Whatever  of  law 
there  is,  is  unnecessary,  and  therefore  wrong,"  comes  nearer  his 
fallacious  position.  He  forgets  that  social  perfection  is  not  pos- 
sible in  the  presence  of  that  human  imperfection, — as  old  as  the 
everlasting  hills, — which  will  endure  as  long  as  humanity  itself 
endures.    The  fdeal  social  state,  which  shall  have  no  law  because 

229 


230  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

no  law  is  needed,  will  come  to  humanity  only  when  the  plan 
on  which  man  is  said  to  have  been  built  is  reversed  and  he 
becomes  a  little  higher  than  the  angels. 

Out  of  the  glaring  inconsistencies,  absurdities,  outrages,  and 
injustice  perpetrated  in  the  name  of  the  law,  there  has  been 
evolved  something  worse  than  anarchistic  philosophy.  The 
spirit  of  rebellion  against  existing  things  that  is  inborn  in  the 
human  race,  and  comes  to  the  front  as  soon  as  its  toes  are 
trodden  upon,  has  put  on  the  cloak  of  anarchy,  and  preached 
and  practised  the  doctrine  of  revolution  and  destruction.  It  is 
not  the  ass  in  the  lion's  skin ;  it  is  the  human  hyena  who  has  put 
on  the  garb  of  a  nobler,  if  erratic,  beast  and  gone  forth  to  de- 
stroy, not  to  teach  or  reform.  This  human  hyena  has  been 
heard  from  before.  He  has  tortured,  killed,  and  robbed  in  the 
name  of  religion,  assassinated  in  the  name  of  liberty,  and  exe- 
cuted and  imprisoned  in  the  name  of  the  law,  through  countless 
generations.  He  has  worn  the  ermine  of  the  judge,  the  cloak  of 
the  saint,  the  patriot,  the  martyr — of  the  good  and  the  wise.  He 
has  ever  been  and  is  hydraheaded,  and  whatever  name  he  has 
been  known  by, — and  this  has  varied  with  his  environment, — 
his  true  patronymic  is  Fanatic.  His  cause  has  sometimes  been  a 
just  one,  he  has  sometimes  made  for  the  common  good  of 
humanity,  but  this  has  been  more  often  accidental  than  is  gen- 
erally supposed.  The  soul  of  good  in  things  evil  oft  flashes  from 
the  degenerate  and  unstable  brain.  Charlotte  Corday  was  as 
much  of  a  fanatic  as  Marat,  and  lacked  his  intelligence.  Both 
had  their  uses.  His  usefulness  had  passed,  and  her  stab  was 
timely.  History  has  done  more  for  the  Corday  than  for  the 
Marat,  but  history  requires  time  to  be  just.  Had  Louis  Riel, 
the  rebel,  succeeded,  he  would  have  been  accorded  the  laurel- 
wreath  of  fame,  instead  of  a  rope.  Insane  though  he  was,  he 
would  have  added  another  page  to  the  history  of  patriotism.^ 

Following  in  the  wake  of  anarchy  comes  the  paranoiac.    Re- 


*  Dr.  Ireland,  in  Through  the  Ivory  Gate,  asserts  the  insanity  of 
Riel.  Data  furnished  me  by  Kiel's  friend  and  co-worker,  Mr.  H.  J. 
Jaxon,  of  Chicago,  confirm  Dr.  Ireland's  view. 


ANARCHY    IN    ITS    RELATIONS    TO    CRIME     231 

ligion,  politics,  patriotism — any  of  these  things — might  by  sug- 
gestion impel  him  to  evil  deeds,  but  anarchy  is  the  thing  which 
has  most  impressed  him,  and  forthwith  he  puts  the  label,  "  An- 
archist," on  himself,  and  goes  forth  to  destroy  and  kill.  Should 
he  forget  to  assume  the  guise  of  anarchy,  the  press  and  the 
police  take  the  poor  misguided,  publicly  unclassified  maverick 
into  their  tender  arms  and  brand  him.  Should  the  law  slay  him, 
the  autopsy  may  show  a  brain  cut  on  the  bias;  he  may  have 
meningitis  or  a  huge  brain  tumor — he  is  an  "  anarchist"  all  the 
same.  Side  by  side  with  the  fanatic  and  the  paranoiac  in  the 
train  of  evils  that  follow  the  enunciation  of  anarchistic  doctrines 
comes  the  true  criminal,  who  finds  in  the  doctrine  a  safe  cover 
from  which  to  make  his  depredations.  The  police  official  who  is 
desirous  of  self-aggrandizement,  like  the  devil,  "  comes  also." 

In  considering  anarchy,  the  average  citizen  is  usually  carried 
away  by  the  panicky  notions  of  the  public  at  large.  He  forgets 
that  anarchy  in  some  of  its  phases  has  stood  for  some  of  the 
grandest  onward  movements  in  the  history  of  human  progress. 
Every  dissension  against  state  paternalism,  however  offensive 
and  oppressive  the  latter  might  be ;  every  act  against  existing 
established  forms  of  church  or  state;  and  every  struggle  for 
liberty  has  been  termed  anarchy,  from  time  immemorial. 

Taking  the  popular  notion  of  anarchy  as  the  point  of  de- 
parture, and  accepting  it  as  rebellion  against  law  and  order,  I 
have  no  hesitancy  in  saying  that  instinctive  anarchy  is  a  part  of 
human  psychology  in  general.  That  the  average  man  is  an 
anarchist  at  heart,  I  verily  believe.  When  it  pleases  or  profits 
him  to  defy  the  law — that  law  which  he  has  constructed  osten- 
sibly from  altruistic  motives,  but  really  to  protect  his  selfish 
self — he  does  so.  The  soldier,  under  the  cloak  of  that  organiza- 
tion of  selfish  interests  known  as  government,  or  the  proletarian, 
under  the  guise  of  a  trades-unionist,  may  defy  all  law  and  play 
the  brute.  We  make  a  hero  of  the  first,  and  wink  at  the  trans- 
gressions of  the  latter. 

From  boyhood  up  the  average  man.  and  especially  the  Ameri- 
can, hates  all  authority,  however  submissive  he  may  be  from 
fear  or  policy.     He  dearly  loves  to  wear  the  badge  of  aiitliority 


232  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

himself;  he  loves  a  uniform,  but  cordially  hates  the  man  whose 
straps  permit  him  to  stand  on  the  next  round  above  him.  The 
well-beloved  commander  is  largely  a  story-book  creation.  There 
are  such,  it  is  true,  but  for  every  one  of  these  there  are  ten  who 
are  disliked.  Men  may  submit  to  authority,  but  they  hate  it 
just  the  same. 

The  psychology  of  crowds,  and  especially  mobs,  has  taught 
me  much.  What  a  selfish,  mean,  cruel,  unreasoning  thing  a  mob 
is,  to  be  sure.  In  a  conflict  between  a  mob  and  the  police  or 
militia,  who  gets  the  sympathy  of  the  should-be-disinterested 
onlooker?  The  law-breaker,  usually.  And  moral  antagonism  is 
not  all  the  police  or  soldiers  have  to  contend  with.  Many  a 
brick  is  thrown,  many  a  shot  fired  at  the  law  by  men  and  women 
who  have  no  possible  grievance  to  redress.  A  long  service  with 
the  National  Guard  has  enabled  me  to  make  some  very  practical, 
and  sometimes  personally  disagreeable,  observations  on  this 
point.  One  would  suspect  that  rebellion  against  authority  is 
peculiarly  American,  judging  by  the  comparative  respect  shown 
to  uniforms  abroad.  An  American  policeman  without  his  club 
could  not  obtain  prestige  for  his  star. 

While  this  chapter  was  in  preparation,  one  of  the  frequently 
occurring  proofs  of  the  correctness  of  the  foregoing  remarks 
appeared  in  the  Chicago  dailies.  I  quote  it  verbatim.  It  bears 
not  only  on  the  special  point  to  which  attention  has  been  called, 
but  also  upon  the  general  question  of  the  too  frequent  anarchical 
trend  of  labor : 

"  The  struggle  between  the  Special  Order  Clothing  Makers'  Union 
and  the  Garment  Workers  resulted  in  a  riot  last  night,  in  which  a 
policeman  was  given  a  beating  after  a  crowd  of  men  and  women  had 
torn  his  star  from  his  breast  and  wrested  the  club  from  his  hand.  Just 
as  he  sank  unconscious  to  the  street  and  the  crowd  was  preparing  to 
trample  upon  him,  a  wagon-load  of  oflficers  appeared,  and  the  crowd 
scattered. 

"  There  had  been  trouble  before  at  the  same  place,  and  the  officer 
had  been  detailed  to  preserve  order.  When  the  officer  reached  the  scene 
of  the  trouble,  he  ordered  the  crowd  to  disperse.  Yells  of  derision 
greeted  him,  and  the  demonstration  continued.  Finding  it  impossible 
to  restore  order,  the  officer  placed  one  of  the  men  who  was  foremost 


ANARCHY    IN    ITS    RELATIONS    TO    CRIME     233 

in  the  rioting  under  arrest.  Before  he  had  an  opportunity  to  draw  his 
club,  the  crowd  was  upon  him  from  all  sides.  Some  one  seized  his  hands 
and  held  them  behind  his  back,  while  the  prisoner  disappeared.  Others 
tore  off  his  star  and  took  away  his  revolver  and  belt.  Blows  showered 
from  all  sides  until  he  sank  to  the  ground,  just  as  the  patrol  wagon 
came  around  the  corner." 

The  foreign-born  anarchist  has  been  the  bete  noir  of  the 
American  pubHc  since  1886 — the  fateful  year  of  the  Haymarket 
Massacre.  Reviewing  the  country's  history  since  that  time,  very 
Httle  has  happened  that  justifies  serious  apprehension  of  the 
stereotyped  form  of  destructive  anarchy.  The  argument  will,  of 
course,  be  advanced  that  the  legal  murder  of  a  few  anarchists  in 
revenge  for  the  illegal  murder  of  a  number  of  policemen  at  the 
Haymarket  put  a  stop  to  further  serious  anarchistic  demonstra- 
tions. I  have  no  sympathy  with  anarchy  in  any  guise,  but  be- 
lieving, as  I  do,  that  anarchy  per  se  is  not  dangerous ;  that  it  is 
dangerous  only  in  so  far  as  it  brings  paranoia,  criminality,  and 
fanaticism  to  the  fore, — for  which  elements  in  humanity  philo- 
sophic anarchy  is  no  more  responsible  than  is  the  Church, — and 
being  convinced  that  nothing  punitive  can  long  repress  the  out- 
cropping of  the  criminal  impulses  of  degenerates,  I  am  forced 
to  a  different  conclusion.  I  believe  that,  despite  the  Haymarket 
affair,  the  anarchist  bugaboo  has  been  largely  fuss  and  feathers. 
If  capital  punishment  has  repressed  revolutionary  anarchy,  it  has 
accomplished  more  than  it  has  elsewhere.  I  believe,  moreover, 
that  something  more  than  anarchistic  ideas,  something  more 
than  fanaticism,  was  responsible  for  the  anarchist  troubles  in 
Chicago.  Those  disturbances  were  the  ill-advised  and  inco- 
herent efforts  of  diseased  and  undisciplined  minds  to  right  by 
revolution  obvious  social  and  economic  wrongs,  which  logically 
should  have  been  left  to  the  slower  and  surer  process  of  evolu- 
tion. 

Comparing  the  record  of  crimes  committed  since  1884  by 
avowed  or  ktiown  anarchi.sts  with  those  perpetrated  by  native 
Americans  or  fostered  by  a  distinctively  American  sentiment. 
even  a  superficial  observer  will  require  a  microscope  to  (Uttct  the 
influence  of  recognized,  foreign-bred  anarchy  on   the  criminal 


234  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

history  of  this  country.  The  American  is  not  particularly  dis- 
tinguished by  his  innate  regard  for  law  and  order.  Remove  his 
social  and  legal  inhibitions,  and  he  is  a  pretty  tough  customer.  In 
some  civilized  countries  Americanism  and  lawlessness  are  syn- 
onymous. The  Kentucky  movmtaineer,  ethnologically  speaking, 
is  the  type  of  native  American,  if  Professor  Starr  is  to  be  be- 
lieved. United  States  revenue  officers  have  some  very  definite 
ideas  as  to  his  respect  for  the  law.  Under  the  fallacious  impres- 
sion that  he  could  do  as  he  liked  with  his  own,  he  has  moon- 
shined,  and  slain  those  who  have  interfered  with  him,  for,  lo, 
these  many  generations.  What  of  the  feuds  of  the  South,  in 
which  whole  families,  children  and  all,  have  been  exterminated? 
The  Southern  feud  is  peculiarly  an  American  adaptation  of  the 
vendetta,  an  adaptation  that  outplays  the  Corsican  at  his  own 
game,  and  puts  the  hasheesh-crazed  Malay  and  his  kris  to  the 
blush.  The  history  of  the  great  West  shows  the  American  with 
inhibitions  removed  in  all  his  glory.  Jesse  James,  Billy  the  Kid, 
the  Earps,  and  my  boyhood's  hero,  Three-Fingered  Jack  of 
Calaveras,  were  distinctively  American  products.  The  Rustler's 
War  in  New  Mexico  and  Wyoming  some  years  ago  cost  over 
four  hundred  lives,  yet  nobody  was  legally  brought  to  book. 
This  war  was  certainly  an  American  institution.  The  sheep 
"  war"  in  Montana  is  recent  history.  Even  as  I  write,  Colorado 
is  in  the  throes  of  the  "  reddest"  of  anarchy.  How  does  the 
dynamiting  of  several  dozen  non-union  laborers  compare  with 
the  Haymarket  massacre  ?  A  few  days  since  a  "  tenderfoot" 
was  shot  to  death  for  wearing  a  silk  hat.  The  day  of  the  pistol 
and  the  bowie  has  not  yet  passed  in  the  South.  It  is  not  long 
since  two  distinguished  Kentuckians,  Swope  and  Goodloe, 
stabbed  and  shot  each  other  to  death  in  the  Lexington  post- 
office.  Kentucky  soil  is  still  warm  with  the  blood  of  Governor 
Goebel,  assassinated  at  the  behest  of  rivals  in  politics.  The 
South  is  the  lyncher's  paradise.  The  smoke  of  burning  negroes 
is  a  stench  in  American  nostrils,  and  has  made  American  law- 
lessness a  by-word  and  reproach  abroad.  Kansas,  Illinois,  In- 
diana, and  many  other  States  have  stamped  mob  violence  as 
superior  to  law.    The  Whitecaps  of  Indiana  are  still  the  Terrors 


\ 


ANARCHY    IN    ITS    RELATIONS    TO    CRIME     235 

of  the  Night.  A  few  days  since  a  respectable  farmer  and  his 
daughter  were  driven  from  their  homes  by  these  dastards.  The 
man  became  insane,  and  the  daughter  a  nervous  wreck,  as  a 
consequence  of  the  abuse  they  received.  And  still  we  prate  of 
the  dangers  of  foreign-born  anarchy,  which,  pernicious  as  it  is, 
is  scarcely  a  drop  in  the  black  sea  of  crime  compared  with 
American  anarchy. 

ANARCHY    IN    CHICAGO 

On  the  night  of  May  4,  1886,  an  ineffaceable  blot  was  placed 
upon  the  history  of  America  and  the  fair  fame  of  the  city  of 
Chicago.  The  Haymarket  Massacre  was  one  of  the  most  ter- 
rible events  this  country  has  ever  witnessed.  Following  it  came 
a  demoralized  and  unreasoning  state  of  the  public  mind — social 
hysteria — that  lasted  for  many  months.  The  psychic  tension  and 
excitement  of  the  public  were  fostered  and  kept  at  the  boiling- 
point  by  the  social,  personal,  and  political  enemies  of  the  an- 
archists accused  of  the  terrible  crime  by  the  police,  which  was 
naturally  revengeful,  and  which,  moreover,  was  anxious  for 
self-aggrandizement ;  by  the  cowardly  and  panicky  mental  state 
of  a  goodly  portion  of  Chicago's  population,  and  by  the  press. 
The  sympathies  and  influence  of  the  latter  were  naturally  with 
the  upper  dog  in  an  issue  in  which  public  opinion  and  the  wealth 
and  culture  of  the  city  were  arrayed  against  social  elements  that 
combined,  in  varying  proportions,  anarchy,  socialism,  destruc- 
tivism, fanaticism,  paranoia,  and  poverty. 

The  whole  truth  regarding  the  Haymarket  affair,  the  events 
that  led  up  to  it,  and  the  trial  and  execution  of  the  law's  victims 
which  followed  it  may  never  be  known.  If  it  is  ever  written,  it 
will  not  be  by  a  policeman,  nor  yet  by  an  anarchist,  real  or 
alleged.  Some  of  the  young  newspaper  men  of  that  day  might 
have  written  a  fairly  accurate  account  of  it  all,  but  it  is  safe  to 
say  that  the  blue  pencil  of  newspaper  policy  would  have  played 
havoc  with  it.  The  topic  is  now  hardly  a  live  issue,  from  the 
newspaper  view-point,  hence  there  is  no  incentive  to  action  on 
the  part  of  those  best  fitted  to  chronicle  the  events  under  con- 
sideration. The  most  pretentious  account  of  the  anarchist 
troubles  in  Chicago  was  written  by,  or   for,  an   inspector  of 


236  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

police,  whose  connection  with  them  was  so  intimate,  so  interested, 
and  responsible  that  the  huge  book  was  taken  cum  grano  sal  is. 
In  the  market  it  brings  just  about  the  value  of  the  paper  it  con- 
tains.^ 

The  psychologic — or  psychopathic — state  of  a  certain  por- 
tion of  the  working  classes  in  Chicago  that  led  to  the  Haymarket 
affair  was  not  an  unusual  one.  History  shows  many  similar 
examples.  Sometimes  it  is  one  thing,  sometimes  another,  that 
fosters  a  revolutionary  spirit  in  the  human  mind.  Whatever 
the  incentive,  the  psychic  status  is  the  same.  The  struggle  be- 
tween capital  and  labor  had  been  on  for  many  years.  Crack- 
brained  enthusiasts,  with  half-baked  and  perverted  socialistic 
ideas,  recognized  the  many  injustices  perpetrated  upon  those  who 
had  not  by  those  who  had.  These  distorted  brains  could  not  rea- 
son logically  along  economic  lines.  They  saw  the  misery  alone 
of  the  working  classes.  With  a  complete  misconception  of  the 
tenets  of  the  philosophic  anarchistic  cult,  and  seeing  in  the  law 
only  a  weapon  of  unjust  discrimination  against  the  wage- worker, 
they  believed  that  anarchy  was  the  panacea  for  all  social  and 
economic  ills.  Unlike  the  philosophers  whom  they  aped,  they 
believed  that  the  only  way  to  cure  these  ills  was  by  revolution 
and  violence.    And  so  the  party  of  "  Destructivists"  was  born. 

The  Chicago  anarchy  of  1886  was  the  product  of  certain 
vicious  social  and  economic  conditions  acting  upon  unstable 
brains.  It  was  a  phase  of  the  struggle  between  capital  and  labor,  in 
which  the  radicalism  of  a  few  men  was  concentrated  as  anarchy, 
and  abetted  by  paranoiacs.  In  principle,  it  was  no  better  and  no 
worse  than  some  other  phases  of  it  conducted  under  the  auspices 
of  trades  unionism.  The  people  of  America  are  welcome  to  such 
consolation  as  they  may  obtain  from  hair-splitting  differences  in 
the  nomenclature  of  riots ;  they  may  also  go  on  in  the  fatuous 
belief  that  revolutionary  anarchy  died  on  a  Chicago  scaffold,  but 
the  sooner  they  comprehend  social,  economic,  and  psychopathic 
conditions  in  their  true  relations,  the  better  for  the  country. 
They  should  not  be  blinded  by  an  unreasoning  patriotism. 

*  Anarchy  and  the  Anarchists,  Capt.  Michael  J.  Schaack. 


I 


ANARCHY    IN    ITS    RELATIONS    TO    CRIME     237 

For  many  months  the  anarchists  had  given  pubHc  vent  to 
their  feeUngs  and  opinions,  without  interference  by  the  poHce; 
the  leaders,  at  first  somewhat  tame,  grew  more  and  more  radical 
as  time  went  on.  The  necessity  for  radicalism  in  theory  in- 
creased from  day  to  day.  It  required  more  and  more  radical 
means  to  attract  attention.  Anarchistic  orators  who  desired  to 
draw  a  crowd  must  needs  spit  oratorical  fire.  In  some  instances 
the  orator  began  to  believe  in  himself,  and  to  fancy  that  he  was 
really  blood-thirsty ;  in  other  instances  he  was  a  degenerate 
savage  primarily.  The  suggestion  worked  both  ways, — i.e.,  upon 
the  orator  and  his  audience.  The  doctrine  preached  by  the  an- 
archists who  were  wont  to  harangue  the  crowds  on  the  lake 
front  and  street-corners  of  Chicago  was  a  jumble  of  socialism, 
anarchy,  revolution,  labor  grievances,  real  or  alleged  sympathy 
with  the  poor  and  down-trodden,  and  a  mortal  antipathy  for  the 
police — which  was  supposed  to  be  the  embodiment  of  every  foe 
to  the  working  classes.  Each  orator  saw  behind  him,  in  his 
mind's  eye,  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  with  its 
guarantee  of  the  right  of  free  speech.  As  his  psychology  be- 
came more  and  more  distorted,  his  enthusiasm  increased,  and 
he  mouthed  more  and  more  loudly  of  blood,  fire,  and  that  modern 
substitute  for  the  sword,  dynamite.  His  auditors  were  mainly 
curiosity  seekers,  or  idle  workers,  seeking  in  vain  for  employ- 
ment and  consolation.  Although  dangerous,  the  really  sincere 
followers  of  the  revolutionary  cult  were  few  and  far  between — 
as  few  as  the  professors  of  religion  who  surround  the  Salvation 
Army  lasses.  The  public  knew  this,  the  authorities  appreciated 
it,  and  the  anarchists  were  stupidly  treated  as  a  huge  joke,  until 
the  terrible  awakening  came,  when  the  police  went  to  the  other 
extreme  and  discovered  a  menace  to  society  in  the  most  innocu- 
ous gatherings.  Once  serious  trouble  had  arisen,  no  congrega- 
tion of  citizens  was  too  humble  or  too  peaceable  to  suffer  the 
opprobrium  of  anarchy.  Labor  meetings,  socialistic  gatherings, 
and  meetings  of  radicals  of  all  kinds  were  branded  by  the  police 
and  press  alarmists  with  the  stigma  of  anarchy.  A  new  element 
had  also  entered  politics.  Instead  of  endeavoring  to  allay  tlie 
excitement  and  relieve  the  tension  of  the  public  nerves,  press  and 


238  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

police  united  in  adding-  fuel  to  the  psychic  fire.  Both  were 
actuated  by  business  motives,  tinctured  with  the  prevalent  hys- 
teria. The  police  added  the  flavor  of  revenge.  The  wealthy 
classes  added  the  element  of  fear, — innocent  and  illogical,  even 
if  natural,  in  some  cases ;  the  reflex  of  a  guilty  conscience  in 
others. 

The  history  of  the  Haymarket  Massacre  was,  in  brief,  as 
follows : 

On  May  2,  1886,  occurred  what  is  known  as  the  McCormick 
or  "  Black  Roads"  riot.  This  was  a  conflict  between  the  police 
and  a  band  of  striking  workmen,  whose  connection  with  the 
anarchists  was  a  phantasm  of  police  construction.  Several  work- 
men were  killed,  perhaps  justly,  but  the  police  gained  no  laurels 
in  the  encounter.  The  remark  made  by  a  certain  police  inspector 
after  the  riot  was  a  reflex  of  official  chagrin  and  desire  for 
revenge, — "  Wait  until  we  catch  a  lot  of  those  fellows  together." 

The  label  of  "  anarchist,"  put  upon  the  workingman  by  the 
police,  was  accepted  by  the  radicals,  who  were  quite  as  anxious  to 
claim  the  workingman  and  the  socialist  for  their  own  as  the 
police  were  to  label  them  anarchists.  The  opportunity  of 
"  catching  a  lot  of  those  fellows  together"  came  only  too  soon. 

On  May  3  a  meeting  was  held  by  the  radicals  to  arrange  for 
an  indignation  meeting  at  the  Haymarket  Square  on  the  follow- 
ing evening.  Appropriating  the  slain  workmen  as  their  own, 
the  anarchists,  like  the  police,  made  "  revenge"  their  watch- 
word. 

On  the  evening  of  May  4  the  memorable  Haymarket  meeting 
occurred.  The  mayor  of  Chicago  visited  the  meeting  to  reassure 
himself.  He  had  been  warned  that  trouble  was  brewing.  He 
listened  to  the  speeches,  noted  the  temper  of  the  crowd,  and 
saying,  "  This  is  a  peaceable  meeting,"  went  his  way. 

Soon  after  the  mayor's  departure  several  hundred  policemen 
— some  say  with  revolvers  drawn — descended  upon  the  crowd, 
which  had  now  dwindled  down,  it  is  said  by  persons  in  a  posi- 
tion to  know,  to  five  hundred  persons  or  less,  most  of  whom 
were  probably  curiosity  seekers,  judging  from  the  composition 
of  the  average  crowd.    As  the  police  approached,  a  bomb  was 


ANARCHY    IN    ITS    RELATIONS    TO    CRIME     239 

thrown,  which,  exploding,  killed  or  wounded  a  number  of 
officers. 

Accounts  of  the  events  immediately  following  the  explosion 
of  the  bomb  vary.  One  newspaper  man  whom  I  heard  relating 
his  experience  said  that  the  police  practically  all  ran  away, 
firing  their  revolvers  wildly  in  all  directions.  According  to  his 
account,  they  re-formed  outside  the  square,  and  then  charged 
back,  shooting  and  clubbing  at  everything  in  sight.  As  he  him- 
self happened  to  get  clubbed,  possibly  his  testimony  was  biased. 
I  give  it  for  what  it  is  worth. 

That  many  of  the  wounds  sustained  by  the  police  were  in- 
flicted by  their  brethren  is  more  than  possible,  and  has  been 
asserted.  The  location  of  the  wounds  and  the  number  of  regula- 
tion bullets  said  to  have  been  extracted  were  suggestive,  to  say 
the  least.  This  is  no  reflection  upon  the  bravery  of  the  police. 
There  is  none  braver  than  ours,  but  the  bravest  men  can  be 
stampeded,  and  police  officers  are  not  drilled  in  facing  such  sur- 
prises. The  foregoing  remarks  bear  merely  upon  the  question 
of  whether  a  concerted  revolver  onslaught  upon  the  police  was 
made  by  the  anarchists,  or  the  massacre  was  the  work  of  one  or 
more  paranoiacs  acting  independently,  according  to  their  de- 
praved and  vicious  lights.  There  are  several  theories  from 
which  to  make  a  selection, — viz. : 

1.  The  bomb  was  thrown  by  a  paranoiac  hanger-on  of 
anarchy,  and  was  as  much  of  a  surprise  to  the  anarchists  in 
general  as  to  the  police.  The  crowd  scattered  and  so  did  the 
officers,  the  latter,  blinded,  stunned,  and  demoralized,  firing  their 
revolvers  at  random  as  they  fled. 

2.  The  bomb-throwing  was  a  prearranged  affair,  and  was 
followed  by  a  concerted  attack  on  the  police  by  a  large  number 
of  anarchists  armed  with  regulation  revolvers.  Neither  an- 
archists nor  police  were  surprised  nor  demoralized  by  the  bomb. 
They  stood  like  veterans  of  1861,  and  fought  each  other  to  the 
death.    The  killing  and  wounding  was  all  on  one  side. 

3.  The  bomb  fired  was  as  big  as  a  barrel  and  loaded  to  the 
fuse  hole  with  bullets,  mostly  regulation.  As  to  the  conduct  of 
police  and  crowd,  one  may  take  his  choice. 


240  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

Of  the  twenty-nine  men  chronicled  by  Captain  Schaack ''  as 
having  been  wounded  by  bullets,  six  were  wounded  in  the  back 
and  five  in  the  calf  of  the  leg.  The  other  officers  were  variously 
wounded  in  the  thighs  or  legs  (front  or  rear  not  stated),  elbows, 
etc.  But  one  man  was  shot  in  the  chest,  and  none  in  the  abdo- 
men. One  man  only  was  shot  in  the  head.  Were  the  anarchists 
so  merciful  as  to  aim  at  the  officers'  legs?  Incidentally,  which 
way  were  the  officers  going,  relative  to  the  position  of  the  an- 
archists, in  order  that  eleven  could  be  shot  from  behind?  Shell 
wounds  are,  of  course,  excluded  from  the  foregoing.  In  all, 
forty  men  were  listed  as  wounded  by  the  shell.  The  projectile 
must  have  been  immense  if  this  be  a  true  account.  An  intelligent 
newspaper  man  who  was  on  the  ground  says  that  a  large  part 
of  the  pistol-firing  was  done  by  detectives  in  citizens'  dress,  who 
shot  at  everything  and  everybody  in  sight.  He  also  says  that 
when  the  officers  were  ordered  to  "  fall  in"  after  the  explosion, 
there  was  but  one  hero  to  respond.  He  further  claims  that  the 
bomb  was  thrown,  not  from  behind  the  speakers'  stand,  as  the 
authorities  contended,  but  from  a  corner  of  the  street  remote 
from  it. 

I  submit  that  this  analysis  does  not  bear  out  the  published 
account  of  a  pitched  battle,  and  supports  the  view  that  a  lunatic, 
acting  practically  independently,  threw  the  bomb  and  had  no 
armed  support. 

Schaack  says,  "  The  killed  and  wounded  on  the  anarchist  side 
was  far  in  excess  of  the  police  loss,  although  nobody  knows  how 
many  were  shot."  He  further  says  that  the  police  were  "  good 
marksmen,  and  shot  to  kill."  What  became  of  the  dead  and 
dying  anarchists  nobody  knows.  Schaack  had  only  one  name 
of  a  wounded  anarchist  to  oflFer,  and  not  a  single  name  of  a  dead 
one.  This  looks  queer  for  a  pitched  battle  with  a  mob.  The 
anarchists  are  to  be  congratulated  on  the  excellence  of  their  hos- 
pital corps  and  ambulance  system.  The  police  are  to  be  com- 
mended for  their  hitherto  unknown  leniency  in  not  booking  the 
wounded  anarchists,  who,   Schaack  says,  "  were  taken  to  the 

'  Op.  cit. 


ANARCHY    IN    ITS    RELATIONS    TO    CRIME     241 

Desplaines  Street  Station,  whence  they  were  afterwards  removed 
by  their  friends." 

Scarcely  had  the  smoke  of  the  bomb  cleared  away  before  the 
police  drag-net  had  snared  a  number  of  men  who  were  sus- 
pected of  planning  the  throwing  of  the  missile.  The  real  culprit 
has  never  been  found.  Men  of  known  anarchistic  proclivities 
were  tried  and  convicted  by  a  strained  application  of  the  con- 
spiracy law, — a  law  introduced  by  Senator  Merritt,  in  1877,  to 
control  strikers  in  the  coal-mines. 

The  fact  that  the  application  of  the  law  was  illogical  and 
biased  was  so  evident  that  a  more  complete  "  whitewash"  con- 
spiracy law  was  adopted  by  the  Legislature  of  Illinois  in  1887. 
This  was  entitled,  "  An  Act  to  further  define  Conspiracy  and  to 
punish  the  Same  and  Crimes  committed  in  Pursuance  thereof." 
This  law  was  repealed  in  1901. .  When  a  vain  attempt  to  intro- 
duce this  law  in  New  York  was  subsequently  made  in  the 
Legislature  of  that  State,  Whitelaw  Reid  stigmatized  it  as  "  a 
law  under  which  no  man's  life  or  property  would  be  safe." 

Of  the  convicted  anarchists,  four  were  executed.  One,  un- 
der sentence  of  death,  Louis  Lingg,  the  merriest,  maddest  an- 
archist of  them  all,  ended  his  career  of  diseased  cerebration  by 
blowing  his  head  off  in  his  cell  with  a  dynamite  cartridge.  Oscar 
W.  Neebe  was  sent  to  the  penitentiary  for  fifteen  years.  Michael 
Schwab  and  Samuel  Fielden  were  sentenced  to  death,  but  their 
sentences  were  afterwards  commuted  to  imprisonment  for  life. 
The  accused  had  about  as  much  chance  as  a  yellow  dog  under 
indictment  for  hydrophobia.  Police,  press,  public  prosecutors, 
and  the  public  joined  in  the  cry,  "  Convict  and  hang !"  without 
much  rhyme  and  less  reason.  The  police  sought  revenge  and 
aggrandizement,  and  did  not  hesitate  to  still  further  inflame 
public  sentiment.  Bombs  of  absurd  manufacture  were  found  in 
the  most  ridiculous  places.  Fake  anarchistic  plots  and  counter- 
plots were  discovered  daily.  The  prosecution  was  working  for 
fame  and  professional  prestige ;  a  few  lives,  more  or  less, 
weighed  but  little  in  the  balance.  The  press  reflected  public 
opinion  and  desire.  Conviction  and  execution  were  a  foregone 
conclusion.    That  the  trial  was  a  legal  farce  many  thinking  and 

16 


242  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

unprejudiced  lawyers  conversant  with  the  facts  asserted.  Gov- 
ernor Altgeld's  published  reasons  for  pardoning  the  anarchists, 
drastic  as  they  were,  scarce  did  the  subject  justice. 

And  then  came  the  execution.  Possibly  the  victims  belonged 
to  the  better  dead,  possibly  history  may  vindicate  Chicago  on 
altruistic  grounds  for  the  execution  of  the  anarchists,  but  the 
Lady  with  the  Blinders — ^Justice — will  never  exonerate  the  city. 
Time  is  a  great  Court  of  Appeals,  by  which  the  trial  and  execu- 
tion of  the  anarchists  will  eventually  be  assigned  their  proper 
place  in  the  record  of  legal  crimes. 

No  evidence  was  forthcoming  at  the  trial  to  show  that  the 
Haymarket  meeting  was  called  for  other  than  a  peaceful  pur- 
pose. Only  two  of  the  men  convicted  were  proved  to  be  impli- 
cated in  calling  the  meeting.  If  there  was  on  the  part  of  anybody 
a  prearranged  plan  to  attack  the  police, — and  there  must  have 
been  such  a  plan  on  the  part  of  the  man  who  threw  the  bomb, — 
it  was  most  probably  based  upon  a  paranoiac's  notion  of  the 
rights  supposed  to  be  guaranteed  by  the  Constitution.  It  will 
be  remembered  in  this  connection  that  the  literal  interpretation 
of  the  doctrine  of  State's  rights  on  the  part  of  the  South  pre- 
cipitated the  great  Civil  War.  The  lunatic  who  committed  the 
horrible  deed  at  the  Haymarket  was  probably  actuated  by  the 
principle  of  self-defence,  viewed  by  a  disordered  brain  that  ap- 
plied the  principle  literally,  and  saw  in  the  actions  of  the  police 
themselves  a  justification  of  its  literal  application.  Of  the  men 
condemned,  but  one  was  of  the  type  of  man  from  whom  such  a 
deed  might  have  been  expected,  and  he,  Louis  Lingg,  was  a 
lunatic  if  ever  there  was  one. 

The  Haymarket  meeting  was  in  no  wise  different  from  many 
others  that  had  been  openly  held.  If,  as  has  been  alleged,  a 
large  armed  body  of  officers,  acting  on  the  individual  responsi- 
bility of  one  or  more  inspectors,  and  without  general  orders, 
marched  into  the  square  for  the  avowed  purpose  of  attacking  a 
body  of  citizens  acting  within  their  rights,  it  is  not  surprising 
that  some  paranoiac  hanger-on  to  the  skirts  of  anarchy  and 
socialism  should  have  applied  what  he  believed  to  be  the  prin- 
ciple of  self-defence  to  the  devoted  band  of  police.    Every  radical 


ANARCHY    IN    ITS    RELATIONS    TO    CRIME     243 

movement  in  human  affairs  has  such  mentally  perturbed  ad- 
herents and  camp-followers.  The  skirts  of  religion  and  politics 
are  similarly  attainted.  Instances  of  bloodshed  and  violence 
arising  from  religious  or  political  fervor  and  zeal  blacken  the 
pages  of  the  history  of  every  social  system. 

The  critical  observer,  whether  he  be  a  psychologist  or  not,  is 
forced  to  the  conclusion  that,  whatever  the  underlying  cause  may 
have  been,  the  exciting  cause  of  the  Haymarket  riot  was  an  un- 
warrantable intrusion  in  force  by  the  police  of  a  meeting  which, 
up  to  the  time  of  their  approach,  had  developed  nothing  that 
would  warrant  dispersing  it.  A  little  knowledge  of  psychology, 
a  little  knowledge  of  the  effects  of  radical  oratory  on  paranoiacs, 
and  a  moderate  amount  of  secret  service  work  would  have  pre- 
vented the  loss  of  many  useful  lives.  When  brains  rather  than 
politics  dominate  police  systems,  such  terrible  sacrifices  on  the 
altar  of  ignorance  as  was  the  Haymarket  Massacre  will  be  im- 
possible. An  intelligent  police  system  would  have  had  sense 
enough  to  have  muzzled  the  destructivist  orators  long  before  the 
Haymarket  meeting,  thus  removing  the  source  of  psychic  infec- 
tion of  their  ignorant  or  degenerate  auditors. 

That  indulgence  of  the  right  of  free  speech  in  America  was 
alone  responsible  for  the  Haymarket  affair  is  absurd.  No 
country  in  the  world  is  more  tolerant  of  anarchistic  talk  than 
is  England.  That  country  is  a  haven  of  refuge  for  the  anarchist, 
yet  what  country  has  been  freer  from  the  evils  of  anarchy  ?  The 
flamboyant  speech  of  the  anarchist,  like  some  of  the  more  violent 
outward  manifestations  of  hysteria,  often  serves  to  relieve  nerve- 
tension.  It  is  noteworthy  that  the  first  serious  attempt  to  "  bottle" 
anarchy  in  America  was  followed  by  disaster.  I  have  already 
admitted  the  danger  of  such  principles  as  were  enunciated  by 
the  Chicago  anarchists.  Suggestion  works  havoc  in  the  brains 
of  degenerate  converts  to  radical  ideas  of  industrial  evils,  politics, 
religion,  justice,  and  social  reform,  especially  if  those  ideas  be 
revolutionary.  Such  subjects  are  likely  to  commit  crimes,  and 
desperate  ones.  Suggestive  literature  has  the  same  effect.  But 
such  cases  have  so  far  been  individual,  and  whether  definite 
opposition   on   principle   is   safer   than   watchful    tolerance   and 


244  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

intelligent  regulation  and  control,  with  instant  interference  when 
orators  or  authors  begin  preaching  fire  and  dynamite,  is  open  to 
serious  question.  I  submit  the  respective  methods  of  England 
and  America  for  comparison.  I  also  submit  their  records  of 
riotous  disturbances.  But  society's  revenge  for  the  result  of  its 
own  ignorance,  carelessness,  and  evil  ways  was  complete.  A 
statue,  emblematic  of  the  majesty  of  the  law,  was  erected  in 
Haymarket  Square,  "  lest  we  forget"  the  blot  upon  Chicago's 
record.  The  officer  selected  as  the  model  for  the  law's  majesty 
was  afterwards,  so  the  newspapers  claimed,  discharged  from  the 
force,  for  its  own  good,  and  the  statue  removed.  And  now 
there  is  nothing  to  uphold  the  majesty  of  the  law  in  Haymarket 
Square;  but  in  the  peaceful  cemeteries  of  our  city  stand  monu- 
ments to  the  victims  of  the  anarchist's  bomb  and  the  hangman's 
rope,  of  which  Chicago  may  well  be  ashamed.  Whether  his- 
tory will  one  day  stamp  the  anarchists  as  lunatics  or  martyrs,  or 
will  allow  them  to  remain  under  the  stigma  of  conspirators  and 
assassins  no  man  can  say.  The  murderer  or  fanatic  of  to-day  is 
the  hero  or  martyr  of  to-morrow.  Fanatical  John  Brown  was 
dynamically  an  anarchist,  pure  and  simple ;  he  is  now  a  patriot 
martyr.  And  the  alienist,  philosophic  sociologist,  and  psycholo- 
gist alone  can  understand  why.  One  fact  stands  out  clearly 
from  the  Cimmerian  gloom  of  the  anarchist  case. — viz.,  were  the 
anarchists  to  be  tried  again  to-day,  they  would  not  be  executed. 

ANARCHY    IN   THE    NAME  OF   ORDER   AND   SOCIAL   REVENGE 

The  thinking  person  who  follows  the  daily  chronicle  of  events 
in  this  country  must  acknowledge  that  there  is  a  type  of  anarchy 
which  is  peculiarly  American,  and  a  blot  upon  our  scutcheon. 
Scarcely  a  day  passes  in  which  the  newspapers  do  not  relate 
one  or  more  lynchings  in  various  parts  of  the  country.  These 
lynchings  are  often  accompanied  by  unspeakable  barbarities. 
The  South,  and  to  a  less  degree  the  West,  are  the  focal  points 
of  this  particular  phase  of  American  lawlessness.  The  bru- 
talizing and  demoralizing  eflFects  of  these  atrocities — these  society 
crimes  of  impulse  designed  to  punish  individual  crimes  of  im- 
pulse—are bad  enough,  but  the  impressions  of  America  dis- 


ANARCHY    IN    ITS    RELATIONS    TO    CRIME     245 

seminated  abroad  by  them  are  even  worse,  in  remote  results. 
While  in  Sydney,  New  South  Wales,  a  few  months  ago,  I  was 
highly  edified  by  reading  in  a  prominent  colonial  paper  a  long 
account  of  a  "  roasting  bee"  in  one  of  our  Southern  States,  in 
which,  as  usual,  a  negro  was  the  principal  actor.  Considerable 
space  was  devoted  to  a  circumstantial  account  of  the  manner  in 
which  the  roasting  was  conducted.    Quoth  the  paper : 

"  The  execution  was  delayed  for  several  days,  in  order  that  the 
people  of  the  surrounding  country  might  get  in  to  see  the  exhibition. 
Excursion  trains  were  run  upon  all  the  railroads  at  reduced  fares.  A 
society  event  was  made  of  it,  the  ladies  in  particular  going  to  the 
lynching  in  gala  attire." 

A  graphic  account  of  the  horrible  agony  of  the  victim  and 
the  glee  of  the  spectators  was  appended. 

I  regret  to  say  that  the  Australians  took  the  report  seriously. 
Still,  the  fact  remains  that  a  negro  was  roasted  alive,  and  a  few 
embellishments  more  or  less  really  did  not  count  for  much.  Even 
the  imagination  of  a  newspaper  man  cannot  exaggerate  the  hor- 
rors of  Southern  lynchings. 

Statistics  show  a  record  of  lynchings  in  America  by  no  means 
flattering  to  this  country.  In  the  past  twenty-one  years,  1872 
negroes  have  been  lynched,  an  average  of  895^  per  year.  In 
that  period,  1256  whites  have  been  lynched,  an  average  of  59 
per  year.  There  have  been  61  women  lynched  in  that  period, 
38  colored  and  23  white,  9  of  them  for  murder.  Of  the  615 
white  men  who  were  lynched  in  the  twenty-one  years,  108  were 
executed  for  criminal  assault.  In  the  South,  109 1  negroes  were 
lynched  and  598  whites.  Statistics  cannot  be  made  to  show  that 
more  than  thirty-five  per  cent,  of  the  negroes  lynched  were  guilty 
of  criminal  assault.  The  discrimination  against  the  black  is 
obvious.  In  the  West,  623  persons  were  lynrhed  in  the  twenty- 
one  years,  about  forty-three  per  cent,  being  for  murder.* 

It  would  be  interesting  to  know  how  many  of  the  victims  of 
lynching  were  innocent.  Knowing  the  fallibility  of  legal  trials, 
we  can  imagine  the  accuracy  of  Judge  Lynch 's  court. 


*  Doctorate  Thesis,  J.  Elbert  Cutler  (Yale). 


246  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

Outrages  committed  in  behalf  of  law  and  order  are  the  most 
illogical  acts  of  which  human  beings  are  capable.  They  are 
often  incited  by  degenerates,  whose  evil  tendencies  are  as  marked 
as  those  of  the  victim  whom  they  seek  to  destroy.  Popular  ex- 
citement and  the  cover  of  a  mob  gives  a  chance  for  the  display  of 
the  murderous  instincts  of  persons  who  are  worse  than  the 
criminal  whose  life  they  seek.  A  mob  hungers  for  the  life  of  a 
criminal,  not  because  he  is  a  criminal,  but  because  he  is  a  helpless 
victim,  whose  death  will  satisfy  the  atavistic  craving  of  human 
nature  for  blood  and  sacrifice.  At  a  recent  lynching  in  Kansas 
the  rope  broke,  and  while  the  mob  surged  about  the  prostrate 
victim  of  its  fury,  a  contemptible  assassin  elbowed  his  way  to 
the  front  and  cut  the  prisoner's  throat  from  ear  to  ear.  The 
victim  was  then  strung  up  again.  Doubtless  the  crowd  ap- 
plauded— certainly  the  cowardly  assassin  has  never  been  brought 
to  book.  Even  a  superficial  student  of  psychology  can  recognize 
in  the  assassin  a  degenerate  who  needed  only  the  suggestion  and 
a  safe  opportunity  to  do  murder.  And  in  that  crowd  of  lynchers 
were  many  more  of  the  same  type,  albeit  of  varying  degree  of 
nerve. 

It  has  been  observed  that  both  the  morals  and  intelligence  of 
a  crowd  are  lower  than  the  average  of  the  individuals  com- 
posing it.^  It  is  this  psychologic  fact  that  justifies  suspicion  of 
the  infallibility  of  public  opinion. 

The  psychopathy  of  a  mob  surpasses  the  bounds  of  social 
hysteria,  although  the  latter  underlies  it.  Indeed,  it  transcends 
all  bounds  short  of  homicidal  mania.  This  latter  term  epitomizes 
the  morbid  impulses  of  the  average  mob  when  aroused,  whether 
assembled  for  the  avowed  purpose  of  a  lynching  or  not.  Once 
his  inhibitions  are  removed,  once  his  veneer  of  social,  educational, 
and  moral  refinement  is  cracked,  your  civilized  man  runs  amok 
like  any  other  savage.  Lynchings  bear  the  same  relation  to  a 
mob  that  homicidal  crimes  of  impulse  do  to  the  individual. 

Given  the  psychic  moment,  and  anybody  will  serve  for  the 
leader  of  a  mob.    A  lunatic  is  as  likely  to  become  the  leader  of 

*  Fournial,  Psychologic  des  Foules. 


ANARCHY   IN    ITS    RELATIONS    TO   CRIME     247 

a  so-called  law  and  order  movement  as  of  the  opposite  kind. 
Aristocrat,  plutocrat,  or  proletarian — each  may  lead  a  mob  to 
violent  acts.  The  more  degenerate  he  is,  the  greater  his  violence 
and  the  more  blindly  the  mob  follows  him.  In  1894  two  lynch- 
ings  in  behalf  of  law  and  order  were  led  by  paranoiacs.  In 
1889  the  paranoiac  book-thief,  Funk,  who  was  well  educated,  as 
I  recall  him,  and  intensely  aristocratic  in  ideas  and  temperament, 
advocated  blowing  up  the  laboring  classes  with  dynamite  as  the 
only  remedy  for  the  existing  troubles  between  capital  and  labor. 
Had  he  been  arrayed  upon  the  side  of  labor,  in  1886,  he  might 
have  died  on  the  scaffold  as  an  anarchist.  Placed  in  an  atmos- 
phere of  suspicion  and  terror.  Funk  might  have  precipitated  a 
social  horror,  the  character  of  which  would  have  depended  upon 
the  cause  that  enlisted  his  sympathies.  Arrayed  on  the  pluto- 
cratic side,  he  was  not  dangerous — the  plutocracy  have  few 
social  troubles  that  money  will  not  soothe.  On  the  side  of  the 
proletariat,  he  would  have  been  very  dangerous.  The  working 
classes  have  grievances  for  which  the  universal  panacea,  money, 
is  not  forthcoming. 

History  shows  many  examples  of  the  aristocratic  and  intel- 
ligent classes  using  social  hysteria  to  their  own  advantage. 
Before  that  most  terrible  outbreak  of  homicidal  mania,  the  Reign 
of  Terror  in  France,  the  great  Burke  publicly  incited  the  French 
Royalists  to  become  alarmists  and  diffuse  terror  in  foreign  coun- 
tries. This  led  finally  to  the  invasion  of  France  simultaneously 
by  England,  Austria,  and  Prussia,  and  to  the  civil  war  in  France 
that  developed  the  national  neuropathy  upon  which  the  sus- 
picional  atmosphere  of  the  Reign  of  Terror  with  its  horrors  was 
based. 

A  mob  is  one  of  the  most  effective  means  known  for  re- 
moving inhibitions  and  developing  the  evil  instincts  of  man.  In 
many  cases  the  leader  of  a  mob  is  naturally  a  brute,  with  the 
lowest  and  most  inhuman  instincts.  Unlike  the  typic  degenerate, 
— who  is  not  usually  deterred  from  crime  by  fear  of  consequences 
to  himself, — he  has  a  wholesome  regard  for  his  own  interests. 
He  is  like  many  a  natural-born  coward  who  is  brave  in  battle. 
He  becomes  permeated  with  the  "courage"  of  the  living  mass 


248  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

about  him.  By  and  by  the  savage,  which  usually  lies  dormant  in 
man,  comes  to  the  surface,  and  his  native  cowardice  is  swal- 
lowed up  in  his  lust  for  blood  and  glory.  Of  such  stuff  are  some 
heroes  made.  Every  student  of  the  temper  of  mobs  understands 
this  phase  of  human  mass  psychology.  Obviously,  the  typic 
paranoiac  degenerate  is  most  powerfully  swayed  by  human  mass 
or  mob  impulse.  The  application  of  the  foregoing  to  strikes  and 
political  agitation  is  at  once  evident,  and  is  too  mercilessly  logical 
for  the  comfort  of  social  optimists. 

Were  it  practicable  to  do  so,  the  cowardice  of  the  individuals 
composing  the  average  mob  might  easily  be  demonstrated.  Let  the 
officers  of  the  law  acquiesce  in  the  mob's  jurisdiction,  clear  a  space 
about  the  prisoner,  then  let  some  law-abiding  citizen  or  official 
who  has  found  himself  unable  to  cope  with  the  situation  ask  for 
a  volunteer  to  step  forth  and  begin  the  torture.  Nine  times  in 
ten  there  would  be  no  single  volunteer  with  courage  enough  to 
take  the  initiative  in  full  view  of  the  crowd  of  possible  witnesses. 

The  social  demoralization  resulting  from  such  disgusting  ex- 
hibitions as  the  typic  American  lynching  should  be  self-evident. 
Not  only  does  lynching  fail  of  its  object,  so  far  as  preventing 
crime  is  concerned,  but  it  often  has  the  opposite  effect  by  de- 
veloping savagery  in  individuals  in  whom  it  has  hitherto  lain 
dormant,  and  affording  the  element  of  murder  suggestion  to 
degenerate  brains.  The  moral  tone  of  a  community  cannot  fail 
to  be  lowered  by  such  horrible  deeds  as  burning  a  human  being 
alive.  Experience  has  proved  that  even  legal  public  executions 
are  brutalizing  in  their  effects  upon  many  of  those  who  witness 
them.  They  develop  the  latent  psychic  morbidity  characterized 
by  a  contempt  for  human  life  that  exists  in  a  certain  portion  of 
individuals  in  every  community.  Lynchings  decently  conducted 
are  bad  enough,  but  as  practised  in  the  majority  of  instances  in 
this  country  they  prove  that  the  spirit  of  the  Spanish  Inquisition 
and  other  systems  of  torture  still  exists  in  the  hearts  of  men. 
They  show  a  social  reversion  which  is  by  no  means  complimen- 
tary to  civilization,  with  its  vaunted  progress  and  refinement. 
We  shudder  at  the  hellish  ingenuity  of  a  Torquemada,  with  his 
fearful  methods  of  torture, — why  should  we  in  these  modern 


ANARCHY   IN    ITS    RELATIONS    TO    CRIME     249 

days  tolerate  the  more  horrible  murders  perpetrated  under  the 
pretext  of  protecting  society  from  crime  ? 

There  have  been,  to  be  sure,  instances  in  which  a  short  shrift 
meted  out  to  criminals  has  been  productive  of  good.  The  ex- 
perience of  the  Vigilance  Committee  of  San  Francisco,  in  the 
early  history  of  that  city,  is  a  case  in  point.  But  the  Judge 
Lynch  of  that  day  was  the  only  recourse,  and  was  the  least  of  the 
evils  that  the  early  pioneers  were  compelled  to  face.  Besides,  he 
made  a  dominant  social  law,  accepted  as  arbitrary  by  all  classes. 
His  court  was  a  temporary  expedient  which  was  the  preliminary 
stage  of  permanent  law.  Moreover,  he  did  not  operate  through 
mob  violence.  In  settled  communities,  with  a  regular  system  of 
laws,  however,  no  possible  benefit  to  the  cause  of  law  and  order 
can  result  from  infraction  of  the  law  and  the  disorder  incidental 
to  the  execution  of  a  criminal  by  a  frenzied  mob.  In  a  com- 
munity that  has  no  respect  for  its  own  laws,  the  individual  is  not 
likely  to  be  impressed  with  the  majesty  of  the  law.  Anarchy  is  a 
poor  object-lesson  for  the  degenerate  brain  of  the  law-breaker, 
present  or  prospective. 

Example  has  a  prominent  place  in  criminal  reform.  The  in- 
fluence of  the  example  exerted  by  lynchings  cannot  but  lower  the 
moral  tone  of  the  community  in  which  they  are  perpetrated. 
The  remarks  elsewhere  made  in  this  volume  on  capital  punish- 
ment apply  with  especial  force  to  lynchings,  more  particularly 
where  brutality  is  exhibited.  The  danger  of  executing  the  wrong 
man  is  a  thousand-fold  greater  in  mob  rule  than  in  legal  punish- 
ment. A  friend  of  mine  who  was  shot  by  hold-up  men  was 
identified  by  an  excited  woman  as  one  of  the  robbers,  and  nar- 
rowly escaped  lynching.  The  question  of  identification  is  of 
especial  moment  as  bearing  upon  mob  anarchy.  Niceties  of  dis- 
crimination between  negroes  are  not  characteristic  of  a  Southern 
mob  once  it  gets  its  hands  on  a  victim's  throat.  A  savage  with 
his  blood  lust  aroused  does  not  reason ;  no  more  does  any  mob. 
Northern  or  Southern,  especially  when  killing  a  black  man  is  in 
prospect,  as  witness  the  recent  lynching  of  a  negro  in  Belleville, 
Illinois,  the  lynching  and  burning  of  a  negro  in  Danville,  Illinois, 
and  the  terrible  race  riot  at  Evansville,  Indiana. 


250  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

In  general,  it  is  safe  to  take  all  acts  of  mob  violence  as 
criteria  of  the  general  enlightenment  and  degree  of  civilization  of 
the  community  in  which  they  occur.  They  certainly  are  an  index 
of  the  general  morality,  psychology,  and  degree  of  respect  for  the 
law.  A  lynching  is  a  confession  of  crudeness,  lawlessness,  and 
social  degeneracy  of  which  the  community  should  be  ashamed. 
If  there  is  no  legal  redress  or  remedy  for  crime  in  a  given  com- 
munity, the  fault  lies  with  the  community.  The  law  cannot  rise 
superior  to  its  source.  A  community  that  does  not  recognize 
and  practise  the  simplest  principle  of  common  law,  that  one 
man's  rights  cease  where  another's  begin,  certainly  cannot  profess 
to  be  law-abiding.  It  feeds  upon  a  murderous  human  instinct 
that  is  growing  and  is  likely  to  continue  to  grow.  The  lynching 
of  a  single  negro  will  one  day  be  insufficient  to  quench  the  thirst 
for  blood,  and  wholesale  murder  will  be  the  fashion. 

Lynching  is  a  blot  upon  American  manhood, — away  with  it ! 
Until  it  has  been  relegated  to  oblivion,  the  protests  of  our  people 
against  the  murder  of  Armenians  by  the  Turks,  and  of  Jews  by 
the  Russians,  will  savor  of  opera  bouffe. 

DEEDS   OF  VIOLENCE   AGAINST   RULERS 

The  world's  peace  of  mind  has  been  disturbed  in  long  past 
as  well  as  recent  years  by  anarchistic  demonstrations — real  or 
alleged — against  rulers.  Murders  and  assaults  have  been  com- 
mitted which  have  been  assigned  offhand  to  anarchy,  without  due 
inquiry  as  to  the  facts.  To  show  the  absurdity  of  this  custom, 
and  the  fallacy  of  the  latter-day  explanation  offered  for  most  of 
the  assassinations  and  attempted  assassinations  of  rulers,  I  will 
briefly  review  the  characteristics  of  the  more  prominent  offenders. 

There  have  been  numerous  attacks  upon  Presidents  in  the 
United  States.  Lawrence,  who  attempted  to  kill  President  Jack- 
son, was  a  paranoiac  who  was  afterwards  sent  to  ah  asylum. 
He  was  incited  to  attack  Jackson  by  his  removal  of  deposits 
from  the  United  States  Bank  to  State  banks.  This  was  de- 
nounced fiercely  by  the  plutocracy  of  the  day.  Lawrence  thought 
that  his  right  to  the  funds,  through  his  delusional  claim  to  the 
English  throne,  was  menaced.     He  believed  that  England  had 


ANARCHY   IN    ITS    RELATIONS    TO    CRIME     251 

monetary  rights  in  this  countr)', — i.e.,  a  claim  to  American  funds. 
Here  was  a  paranoiac  defender  of  law  and  order,  who  proposed 
to  punish  President  Jackson  for  something  that  his  twisted 
brain  distorted  into  a  public  as  well  as  personal  wrong. 

John  Wilkes  Booth,  the  murderer  of  Lincoln,  was  a  pertinent 
illustration  of  the  danger  from  paranoiacs  to  which  society  at 
large,  and  men  prominent  in  affairs  of  State  in  particular,  are 
exposed  in  all  social  systems  and  epochs.  The  particular  phase 
of  social  or  political  stress  that  brings  out  the  latent  destructivism 
of  the  given  assassin  vary  widely,  but  the  effect  is  essentially  the 
same.  The  dominant  psychic  impulse  to  remove  a  political  ob- 
struction or  remove  a  wrong,  real  or  fancied,  is  certainly  identical 
in  all  cases.  False  ideas  of  patriotism  or,  as  in  Booth's  case,  de- 
votion to  a  cause  which,  having  been  lost,  put  him  outside  the 
pale  of  conventional  patriotism,  are  quite  as  likely  as  anything 
to  be  the  source  of  inspiration  to  kill.  The  conspiracy  that  made 
Booth  its  deadly  instrument  utilized — whether  knowingly  or  not 
does  not  matter — his  mental  bias  for  its  own  ends.  The  result 
the  whole  world  knows.  The  time  and  place  selected  for  the 
cruel  deed,  and  the  tragic  manner  of  its  performance,  are  all 
suggestive  of  psychopathy.  That  the  murderer  made  an  attempt 
to  save  himself  by  flight  is  no  argument  against  his  psychopathy. 
Booth  was  of  insane  ancestry.  His  father,  Junius  Brutus  Booth, 
once  jumped  overboard  from  a  ship  in  Charleston  Harbor,  with 
suicidal  intent,  while  laboring  under  a  maniacal  attack.  As  a 
boy,  John  Wilkes  Booth  was  considered  crazy.  The  boys  in  the 
streets  of  Baltimore  were  wont  to  run  away  from  him  in  terror. 
He  had  what  Kiernan  has  termed  "  insanity  of  manner,"  and  a 
number  of  the  stigmata  of  degeneracy.  His  eyes  were  unequally 
placed,  and  his  ears  were  pointed,  approximating  what  is  known 
as  the  "  Satanic  ear."  He  was  excessively  emotional,  erratic,  of 
unstable  will,  and  given  to  moods.  His  psychic  constitution  was 
such  as  makes  a  man  either  a  pliable  tool  in  the  hands  of  corrup- 
tionists,  or  a  leader  of  revolutionary  or  reform  movements. 

Charles  J.  Guiteau,  Garfield's  assassin,  came  of  degenerate 
stock,  characterized  by  mental  defectiveness.  The  liistory  of  liis 
g^and-uncle,  who  died  in  an  asylum  in  1810,  showed  insanit\  for 


252  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

several  generations.  His  sister  was  a  victim  of  hystero-epilepsy. 
During  his  youth  Guiteau  had  a  marked  defect  of  speech.  His 
skull  and  face  were  decidedly  asymmetrical.  His  eyes  were 
located  on  different  levels.  The  pupils  were  naturally  unequal. 
The  convolutions  of  Guiteau's  brain  were  irregular  in  type,  along 
the  lines  characteristic  of  hereditary  defectives.  There  was  also 
chronic  diffuse  disease  of  the  brain,  of  a  type  often  found  in 
chronic  secondary  psychoses.  In  other  words,  he  suffered  from 
both  hereditary  brain  defect  and  acquired  brain  disease. 

Guiteau  claimed  to  be  supported  in  his  inspiration  to  kill 
Garfield  by  the  newspapers.  Clippings  of  this  sort  were  found 
upon  him.  Some  of  these  were  introduced  in  evidence  and  some 
suppressed,  according  to  their  bearing  upon  the  chances  of  hang- 
ing the  poor  lunatic.  Among  those  suppressed  was  one  from  a 
prominent  Chicago  paper,  denouncing  Garfield,  and  saying  that 
"  he  ought  to  be  removed."  The  term  "  removed"  was  to  Gui- 
teau symbolic  of  assassination. 

The  "  Prophet,"  Myers,  believed  he  was  divinely  inspired, 
and  had  the  right  to  regulate  certain  wrongs.  A  week  before 
Hayes's  inauguration  he  went  to  Washington  for  the  purpose  of 
showing  the  justice  of  God  by  removing  Hayes  in  sight  of  the 
people.  The  day  before  the  inauguration  he  met  an  officer  of  t'le 
United  States  Secret  Service,  to  whom  he  confided  his  purpose. 
He  recognized  in  the  secret  service  officer,  by  "  certain  tokens 
given  by  God,"  John  the  Baptist.  He  was  arrested  and  sent  to 
the  asylum. 

In  1884  a  paranoiac  mulatto  was  admitted  to  Cook  County 
Asylum,  suffering  from  delusion  of  persecution.  This  man  be- 
lieved that  his  persecutions  were  due  to  witchcraft.  To  get  rid 
of  his  persecutors  he  openly  committed  a  burglary,  and  was  sent 
to  the  penitentiary.  When  committed  to  the  Insane  Hospital  of 
Cook  County,  he  held  General  John  A.  Logan  and  President 
Arthur  responsible  for  his  troubles.  During  the  election  of  1884 
he  became  temporarily  quiet.  He  was  soon  transferred  to  Kan- 
kakee Asylum.  In  May,  1885,  he  escaped  and  went  to  Wash- 
ington, entered  the  White  House  and  demanded  that  Cleveland 
enforce  the  anti-witchcraft  laws  or  be  "  removed." 


ANARCHY    IN    ITS    RELATIONS    TO    CRIME     253 

Had  any  of  the  foregoing  individuals  been  exposed  to  an- 
archistic suggestion,  their  criminal  impulses  would  have  appeared 
on  the  list  charged  up  to  anarchy.  Had  Guiteau  slain  a  man  in 
the  ordinary  walks  of  life,  he  would  not  have  been  sent  to  the 
gibbet,  but  to  an  asylum. 

Czolgosz,  the  slayer  of  President  McKinley,  had  a  somewhat 
indefinite  history.  So  far  as  could  be  learned,  he  had  an  ex- 
tremely morbid  period  of  pubescence.  He  had  never  been  con- 
sidered well-balanced  mentally,  although  there  was  never  any 
suspicion  of  insanity.  He  had  always  been  solitary  and  unsocial 
in  his  habits,  taciturn,  and  somewhat  morose.  He  was  at  one 
time  an  ardent  advocate  of  State  socialism,  and  enthusiastically 
accepted  McKinley 's  doctrine  that  opening  the  large  mills  would 
necessarily  make  labor  in  general  prosperous.  He  was  a  Pole 
by  birth,  and  had  a  long  line  of  revolutionary  ancestry  behind 
him.  The  Polish  race  of  all  others  is  the  most  likely  to  advocate 
revolution  and  assassination  as  "  reform"  measures.  Long  years 
of  oppression,  and  reaction  against  it,  are  responsible  for  this 
trait.  The  "  removal"  of  political  and  social  obstacles  was,  there- 
fore, an  inborn  principle  with  Czolgosz.  What  heredity  had  be- 
gun education  completed,  for  he  was  trained  in  Polish  parochial 
schools.  His  grievance  against  McKinley  must  have  been  based 
upon  general  rather  than  personal  grounds.  He  believed  that 
McKinley  had  broken  his  promise  by  failing  to  open  the  mills. 
To  the  assassin  this  seemed  to  be  due  to  perverse  volition  on  the 
President's  part.  He  evidently  gave  both  the  mill  question  and 
Mr.  McKinley's  responsibility  in  the  matter  undue  importance. 
That  he  was  insane  seems  probable  to  the  author,  although  this 
is  not  so  plain  as  would  be  the  case  with  an  American  similarly 
placed.  The  latter  has  not  so  much  of  the  revolutionary  psy- 
chology. An  education  out  of  harmony  with  his  environment 
might  explain  the  murderer's  perverted  ideas.  I  do  not  believe 
that  Czolgosz  was  an  anarchist,  although  the  matter  of  nomen- 
clature is  of  little  moment  in  the  face  of  so  terrible  a  crime  as  the 
assassination  of  McKinley.  I  protest,  however,  against  obscuring 
true  causes  by  a  fallacious  nomenclature.  Tf  all  the  anarchists  in 
the  world  were  slain,  assassins  of  crowned  heads  and  jircsidcnts 


254  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

would  still  be  at  hand.  The  name  by  which  each  would  be  known 
would  matter  but  little,  either  to  society  at  large  or  to  our  large 
army  of  degenerates.  Elnikoff,  who  slew  the  Czar,  Alexander 
II.,  was  styled  a  nihilist.  He  would  have  fitted  the  role  of 
anarchist  equally  well. 

Czolgosz  was  considered  an  anarchist  because  he  claimed  to 
be  one  after  the  assassination.  The  same  line  of  reasoning  should 
settle  the  identity  of  John  Alexander  Dowie,  who  claims  to  be 
John  the  Baptist.  The  assassin  knew  nothing  of  anarchistic  doc- 
trines, and  was  repudiated  by  both  the  philosophic  and  destruc- 
tivist  branches  of  that  cult.  His  claim  was  based  upon  the 
suggestion  afforded  by  anarchistic  literature,  his  egotism,  which 
impelled  him  to  enlarge  the  importance  of  his  deed,  and,  in  a 
sense,  upon  cowardice.  The  suggestion  to  assassinate  and  the 
suggestion  that  he  was  an  anarchist  were  simultaneous,  and 
founded  upon  radical  expressions  in  anarchistic  publications. 

Whether  a  fair  study  of  Czolgosz  was  possible  in  the  state  of 
public  excitement  and  resentment  is  open  to  question.  A  com- 
parison of  the  rapidity  with  which  his  case  was  hurried  through, 
with  the  drag  of  ordinary  murder  trials,  rs  suggestive. 

That  facial  and  cranial  asymmetry  were  marked  in  Czolgosz 
his  photographs  plainly  show.  This,  irrespective  of  the  bearing 
it  may  have  had  upon  his  case. 

A  distinguished  alienist,  writing  of  Czolgosz,  says," — 

"  His  interest  in  anarchism  appears  to  have  been  of  late  growth  and 
foreign  to  the  ordinary  current  of  his  life,  and  played  but  a  small  part 
in  it  until  after  the  crime,  when  he  said  he  was  an  anarchist,  and  his 
statements  were  accepted  as  a  satisfactory  explanation.  Certainly  it  was 
most  extraordinary  that  the  man  who  committed  the  crime,  and  was  at 
once  branded  as  an  anarchist,  should  have  been  publicly  denounced  in 
the  leading  anarchist  publication  of  the  country  but  five  days  before  as 
a  spy  and  dangerous  character,  not  to  be  trusted  by  anarchists. 

"  I  believe  that  he  was  dominated  by  a  delusion,  as  stated  by  the 
expert  for  the  defence,  the  delusion  of  a  man  of  unsound  mind,  which 
was  much  broader  than  his  belief  that  the  President  was  an  enemy  of 
the  working  people.     Not  only  that,  but  the  President  was  going  around 

•The  Mental  Status  of  Czolgosz,  Walter  Channing;  American 
Journal  of  Insanity,  October,  1902. 


Fig.  12. 


LEON   CZOLGOSZ. 


Fig.  13. 


I.KON    CZOl.C'.OSZ. 


ANARCHY   IN    ITS    RELATIONS   TO    CRIME     255 

the  country  deceiving  people  and  shouting  '  prosperity'  when  there  was 
no  prosperity  for  the  poor  man.  Then,  as  he  was  also  told  by  an 
anarchist  leader,  things  were  getting  worse  and  worse,  and  something 
must  be  done ;  he  did  not  believe  in  the  Republican  form  of  govern- 
ment ;  and  there  should  not  be  any  rulers.  For  all  these  reasons,  he 
was  himself  called  on  to  do  something.  This,  then,  was  the  essence  of 
the  delusion,  that  he  had  a  duty  to  perform,  which  was  to  kill  the 
President,  because  he  was  the  enemy  of  the  good  working  people,  and 
things  were  getting  worse  and  worse. 

"  Speaking  from  the  stand-point  of  the  medical  expert,  it  is  to  me 
very  difficult  to  believe  that  any  American  citizen  of  sound  mind  could 
plan  and  execute  such  a  deed  as  the  assassination  of  the  President,  and 
remain  impervious  to  all  influences  after  his  arrest,  and  up  to  the  time 
of  the  execution." 

Christison  ''  says,  in  reference  to  the  act, — 

"  It  may  first  be  observed  that  acts  themselves  indicate  the  mental 
condition  of  the  actors  when  all  the  circumstances  are  known.  Up  to 
the  age  of  twenty-eight,  and  after  a  long  record  of  an  abnormally  re- 
tiring, peaceful  disposition,  Czolgosz  suddenly  appears  as  a  great  crimi- 
nal. Had  he  been  sane,  this  act  would  imply  an  infraction  of  the  law 
of  normal  growth,  which  is  logically  inconceivable.  Such  a  monstrous 
conception  and  impulse  as  the  wanton  murder  of  the  President  of  the 
United  States,  arising  in  the  mind  of  so  insignificant  a  citizen,  without 
his  being  either  insane  or  a  degenerate,  could  be  nothing  short  of  a 
miracle,  for  the  reason  that  we  require  like  causes  to  produce  like 
results.  To  assume  that  he  was  sane  is  to  assume  that  he  did  a  sane 
act, — i.e.,  one  based  upon  facts  and  having  a  rational  purpose." 

George  III.  of  England  was  the  victim  of  seven  attempts 
at  assassination.  In  each  instance  the  would-be  assassin  was 
insane.  Two  of  them  were  traumatic  suspicional  lunatics,  who 
shot  at  the  king  to  call  attention  to  their  own  grievances.  Five 
attempts  were  made  to  kill  Queen  Victoria.  All  were  pubescent 
insane  save  one,  and  he  was  a  case  of  traumatic  lunacy.  Sipido, 
who  attempted  the  assassination  of  Edward  VII.,  was  a  hebe- 
phreniac. 

Inquiry  into  the  characteristics  and  antecedents  of  Cesarc 
Santo,  the  murderer  of  President  Sadi  Carnot,  of  France,  shows 

^  Epilepsy  and  Responsibility  in  the  Czolgosz  Case.  Was  the  As- 
sassin Sane  or  Insane?     Dr.  J.  S.  Christison. 


256  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

him  to  have  been  a  paranoiac.  No  actual  connection  with  any 
anarchistic  organization  was  ever  proved.  The  same  may  be 
said  of  Luchesi,  the  wretch  who  stabbed  the  Empress  of  Austria ; 
of  Bresci,  the  assassin  of  King  Humbert,  of  Italy ;  and  of  Jacob 
Reich,  who  made  the  attempt  upon  the  Hfe  of  Francis  Joseph, 
of  Austria.  Science  can  but  enter  a  protest  against  the  masking 
of  the  facts  by  the  label  of  anarchy,  the  latest  phase  of  sugges- 
tion in  the  psychology  of  the  paranoiac. 

Apropos  of  the  criminal  tendencies  of  European-bred  Radi- 
cals, the  record  of  the  Italian  nation  is  very  interesting.  The 
Latin  races,  in  particular,  have  a  penchant  for  assassination,  the 
Italian  easily  leading  the  world  in  this  line  of  industry,  as  sta- 
tistics show.  Spitzka,  who  has  made  a  most  careful  study  of 
the  subject,  says  that  a  racial  impulse  to  do  murder,  rather  than 
degeneracy,  underlies  the  frequent  assassinations  by  Italians. 
The  Italian  murderer  is  often  the  result  of  non-progression  of 
the  race  from  the  days  of  barbarism,  rather  than  of  degeneracy 
or  evolutionary  retrogression. 

THE  ANARCHY  OF  GOVERNMENTS 

In  the  sense  of  the  popular  interpretation  of  anarchy,  it  is  the 
foundation  upon  which  the  prosperity  of  nations  rests.  Rapine, 
murder,  robbery,  and  unjust  confiscation  of  property  are  govern- 
mental privileges,  and  constitute  the  fundamental  principles  of 
international  ethics.  Criminal  disregard  of  human  rights  is 
the  main-spring  of  national  power.  The  individual  is  pro- 
hibited by  law  from  stealing  and  murder ;  nations  may  do  both, 
under  cover  of  a  declaration  of  war.  Political  ambition,  a  desire 
for  national,  military,  or  commercial  supremacy,  lust  for  ex- 
pansion,— which,  reduced  to  its  ultimate,  is  political  and  property 
greed, — an  insult,  real  or  fancied, — any  or  all  of  these  may  actu- 
ate nations  in  declaring  war  upon  each  other.  Whatever  the 
alleged  motive  may  be,  the  real  cause  is  usually  the  itching  palm 
within  the  mailed  fist.  Patriotism  is  sometimes  the  sand  that 
governments  throw  in  the  eyes  of  their  people  to  blind  them  to 
the  injustice  and  venality  of  a  cause. 

The  end  of  the  nineteenth  and  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth 


ANARCHY    IN    ITS    RELATIONS    TO    CRIME     257 

century  were  signalized  by  three  colossal  crimes, — viz.,  the 
foreign  occupation  of  China,  and  the  Spanish-American  and 
Boer  Wars.  Scarcely  was  the  world-stage  cleared  before  the 
Russo-Japanese  war  began.  Careful  analysis  shows  political 
jingoism,  national  hysteria,  and  expansion  or  commercial  greed 
as  the  motive  power  of  all  of  these  wholesale  throat  cuttings. 
Russian  Christians  and  heathen  Japs  are  now  busily  engaged  in 
cutting  each  other's  throats  in  a  quarrel  over  territory  which 
neither  owns,  while  the  world  looks  on  without  protest.  The 
trouble  in  China  gave  an  unexampled  opportunity  for  a  display 
of  the  greed  and  unfairness  of  the  great  Christian  nations  of  the 
world.  The  Spanish-American  war  was  ostensibly  waged  in 
behalf  of  humanity, — of  those  poor  reconcentradoes,  of  whom 
nobody  spoke  after  the  war  was  once  begun, — when,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  a  political  response  to  hysterical  popular  clamor  for 
revenge  upon  the  supposed  destroyers  of  the  "  Maine"  was  ac- 
countable for  it.  It  was  an  attempt  to  right  one  heinous  wrong 
by  another.  A  quarrel  over  commercial  and  geographical  plums 
precipitated  Russia  and  Japan  into  war.  England  may  give 
specious  and  hypocritic  explanations  of  the  war  in  the  Transvaal 
till  the  end  of  time,  but  the  glaring  fact  remains  that  if  there  had 
been  no  gold  or  diamonds  in  the  land  of  the  Boers,  there  would 
have  been  no  war.  The  murderous  record  of  these  most  recent 
wars  is  a  blot  upon  humanity's  scroll.  Civilization  boasts  of  its 
advancement,  yet  civilization  is  but  a  thin  veneer  of  hypocrisy 
that  imperfectly  veils  the  savagery  and  rapacity  of  man ;  which 
"  conceals  and  yet  reveals"  that  lust  for  blood  and  plunder  which 
is  inborn  in  human  nature ;  which  has  never  changed,  and  which 
comes  to  the  fore  whenever  civilized  man's  inhibitions  are  re- 
moved. 

Humanity  should  boast  but  little  of  the  refinements  of  civili- 
zation until  war  is  no  more ;  until  that  happy  day  when  individual 
rights  shall  be  paramount,  and  schools  and  gymnasia  shall  have 
risen  from  the  ashes  of  our  jails  and  reformatories  ;  until  cannon 
and  battle-ships  are  a  drug  upon  the  market. 

Governments  have  no  more  moral  right  to  burn,  pillage,  rob, 
and  kill  than  individuals.     Poor  old  China,  learning  civilization 

17 


258  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

from  the  swindling  diplomacy  and  glistening  bayonets  of  Chris- 
tian nations,  was  a  spectacle  of  which  civilization  might  well  be 
ashamed.  Babies  tossed  on  alien  bayonets,  women  outraged  by 
ruffian  white  soldiery,  unarmed  yellow  men  slaughtered  like  sheep 
or  drowned  like  empounded  dogs,  ruinous  indemnities  demanded 
by  Christian  governments,  sacred  temples  defiled  and  robbed  of 
holy  relics, — this  was  the  Oriental's  object-lesson  in  progress  and 
enlightenment — his  civilization  kindergarten ;  this  was  the  white 
man's  message  to  the  "  Yellow  Terror ;"  this  was  Christianity's 
punishment  for  the  Mongolian's  failure  to  appreciate  the  mis- 
sionaries' endeavor  to  cram  an  alien  religion  down  his  unwilling 
throat — for  his  rebellion  against  the  building  of  railroads  over 
the  sacred  bones  of  his  ancestors.  How  the  blood  of  Christian 
youth  is  wont  to  thrill  over  the  declamation  of  brave  Horatius, 
the  Captain  of  the  Gate, — 

"  And  how  can  men  die  better,  than  facing  fearful  odds 
For  the  ashes  of  his  fathers  and  the  temples  of  his  Gods?" 

As  usual,  the  "  civilizer"  extended  the  Bible  in  one  hand, 
whilst  he  grabbed  for  everything  in  sight  with  the  other.  The 
duplicity  of  French  missionaries  was  responsible  for  the  Boxer 
massacres. 

There  was  plenty  of  loot  for  Christian  soldiers  in  China,  and 
some  have  said  that,  while  we  did  not  get  our  full  share,  we  were 
not  altogether  left  out  in  the  cold. 

The  dominant  lie  of  civilization  has  ever  been  that  a  nation 
with  an  up-to-date  religion  has  a  heaven-born  right  to  rob  and 
pillage  primitive  peoples ;  to  confiscate  their  lands,  because,  for- 
sooth, the  civilized  thief  can  make  better  use  of  them  than  the 
lawful  owners. 

The  recent  murder  of  Jews  in  KishinefT,  Russia,  is  an  illus- 
tration of  the  influence  of  the  dominant  lie.  Here  the  Christian 
murdered  the  helpless  Jew,  just  as  the  Turk,  in  the  land  where 
Mohammedanism  is  dominant,  murders  the  Armenian.  The 
cupidity  of  the  Russian,  backed  by  his  "  Christian"  church,  and 
aided  and  abetted  by  his  ignorance  and  superstition,  sufficed  to 
give  his  version  of  the  dominant  lie  a  blood-curdling  application. 


ANARCHY    IN    ITS    RELATIONS    TO    CRIME     259 

England,  the  greatest  of  civilizers,  has  had  one  or  more  wars 
of  conquest  on  her  hands  ever  since  the  inception  of  Victoria's 
reign.  In  the  eyes  of  the  nations  her  cause  has  ever  been  a  just 
one,  because  the  under  dog  has  usually  been  an  ignorant  race  of 
savages.  Civilized  nations  stand  together  in  the  matter  of  rob- 
bery of  those  whose  skins  chance  to  be  of  a  darker  hue  than  ours. 

And  so  the  game  of  civilization  goes  merrily  on,  and  the  chief 
concern  of  the  nations  has  been  whether  one  or  another  has 
grabbed  more  than  its  share. 

When  individuals  attempt  to  cut  each  other's  throats  or  steal 
each  other's  property  or  land,  there  is  a  strong  hand  to  stay  or 
punish  them.  Rulers  of  great  nations  may  do  these  things  on  a 
wholesale  plan  with  impunity  It  is  not  permissible  for  the  indi- 
vidual to  go  after  a  debtor  vi  et  armis,  and  collect  his  dues  at  the 
point  of  a  gun,  yet  this  is  precisely  what  England  and  Germany 
recently  did  to  Venezuela.  The  whole  transaction  was  conducted 
on  the  same  principles  that  govern  a  Chicago  constable  in  at- 
taching a  widow's  furniture  for  debt. 

The  attitude  of  governments  towards  the  lives  and  rights  of 
men  is  well  shown  by  the  manner  in  which  the  assassination  of 
King  Alexander  and  Queen  Draga  and  their  suite,  of  Servia,  was 
regarded.  The  governments  of  Europe  assumed  various  posi- 
tions, none  of  which  reflected  credit  upon  civilization.  Some  held 
that  it  was  none  of  their  affair,  some  applauded,  and  the  remain- 
der condoned  the  murder.  By  nearly  all  the  Powers  it  was  con- 
sidered in  the  light  of  political  expediency.  It  was  a  "  removal," 
that  was  all.  Governments  that  tremble  at  the  mention  of  an- 
archy welcomed  the  new  Servian  regime,  builded  on  anarchy 
and  assassination,  and  cemented  with  the  blood  of  murdered  de- 
generate aristocrats. 

Militarism  is  a  curse  and  a  menace  to  the  peace  of  the  world. 
Armies  and  navies  as  now  maintained  are  not,  as  some  apologists 
claim,  a  partial  guarantee  of  the  safety  and  peace  of  the  individual 
country.  They  are  murderous  instruments,  engines  of  destruc- 
tion, which  are  a  constant  source  of  internal  and  external  oppres- 
sion and  danger. 

Germany  is  the  ideal  of  militarism.    The  benefits,  mental  and 


26o  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

physical,  that  military  discipline  imparts  to  her  youth  might 
count  for  something, — for  there  is  no  better  training  for  prospec- 
tive citizens, — but  it  is  minimized  almost  to  nothingness  by  the 
burden  and  expense  imposed  upon  the  people  at  large.  Your 
German  soldier  typifies  the  insolence,  oppression,  and  robbery  of 
militarism.  The  German  proletariat  is  growling,  and  asking, 
"  Why  this  enormous  army  and  this  great  navy  ?"  The  German 
Emperor  will  perforce  be  compelled  to  show  it  why,  when  the 
grumbling  from  below  shakes  the  throne.  The  chip  is  continually 
on  his  shoulder,  and  if  the  people  protest  too  much,  he  must 
needs  find  somebody  to  knock  it  off.  He  must  find  uses  for  his 
army  and  navy,  else  will  his  occupation  be  gone — the  "  War- 
Lord"  will  be  no  more. 

Potential  militarism — the  standing  armies  and  navies  of  the 
world,  and  their  implied  menace  to  the  peace  of  nations — ofttimes 
furnishes  the  psychic  suggestion  necessary  to  develop  revolu- 
tionary ideas  and  conduct  in  paranoiacs  and  degenerates  in 
general.  Under  proper  leaders  the  psychosis  spreads,  and  may 
become  formidable  dynamic,  revolutionary  militarism.  Actual 
war,  especially,  is  an  act  of  anarchy  that  is  not  without  its  effects 
on  undisciplined  minds  and  unstable  wills. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  an  hysterical  psychosis  may  affect 
an  entire  nation.  War  is  sometimes  a  manifestation  of  national 
hysteria.  This  condition  may  develop  under  stress  of  excitement 
of  any  kind,  and  in  the  presence  of  a  large  standing  army  and  a 
fine  navy  it  is  dangerous,  especially  when  the  anarchy  of  govern- 
ments is  disposed  to  take  advantage  of  psychic  moments.  It  has 
been  said  that  war  is  necessary,  and  consequently  armies  and 
navies  must  be  maintained.  If  this  be  true,  then  our  vaunted 
progress  in  civilization  has  missed  the  top — it  has  not  permeated 
national  governments.  Necessary?  Why,  a  combination  of 
England  and  the  United  States  alone  would  be  sufficient  to 
guarantee  perpetual  peace.  As  the  situation  is  at  present, 
these  two  countries  may  at  any  moment  be  compelled  to  tem- 
porarily combine  and  enjoin  or  declare  war.  They  have  so 
many  selfish  interests  in  common,  that  a  menace  to  either  may 
mean  a  menace  to  both. 


ANARCHY   IN    ITS    RELATIONS    TO    CRIME    261 

War  will  one  day  wear  itself  out.  The  tremendous  ex- 
pense and  destruction  of  life  that  it  entails  will  eventually 
sicken  the  under  dog,  the  public,  and  he  will  act  as  well  as 
growl.  The  destruction  of  vast  numbers  of  men  by  machine 
guns,  and  the  sinking  of  a  few  iron-clad  marine  coffins  by  a 
single  shot  that  no  armor  can  resist,  carrying  to  the  bottom 
within  the  space  of  three  minutes  from  five  hundred  to  one 
thousand  victims  of  modern  improvements  in  murder  machines, 
will  eventually  dull  man's  appetite  for  war  and  glory.  The 
perfection  of  submarine  navigation  is  no  longer  an  idle  dream. 
When  it  arrives,  naval  warfare  will  be  a  thing  of  the  past. 
What  submarine  navigation  and  the  great  expense  and  life 
destruction  incidental  to  war  leave  undone  the  airship  will  com- 
plete, and  war  will  be  no  more.  The  individual  instinct  of 
self-preservation  is  the  only  thing  that  will  ever  cure  the  anarchy 
of  governments. 

Let  the  world  meanwhile  bear  up  under  its  load  of  cold 
iron,  explosives,  and  expensive  uniforms,  and  dream  of  the 
day  when  there  will  be  an  international  court,  from  which 
none  may  appeal  to  arms ;  international  soldiery  with  police 
duties  alone,  and  armed  ships  that  shall  patrol  the  seas  for 
the  single  purpose  of  protecting  society  against  the  natural 
evil  instincts  of  its  integers. 

In  this  country  war  has  ever  been  a  cloak  for  political 
"  graft."  We  need  go  no  farther  back  than  the  Spanish- 
American  War  to  find  evidences  of  this.  Persons  who  had 
commodities  useful  in  war  united  to  plunder  the  government, 
and  the  "  powers  that  be"  submitted  because  every  large  con- 
tract meant  a  large  "  rake  oflf"  for  political  favorites.  One 
pure,  multi-millionaire  patriot,  who  once  occupied  a  promi- 
nent official  position  under  the  government,  secured  a  contract 
for  many  thousand  army  shoes.  He  farmed  his  contract  out 
at  a  profit  of  sixty  per  cent,  or  more.  Tentage,  clothing,  food 
supplies,  medicines,  even  army  mules,  afford  fat  picking  for 
robbers  in  war  time.  The  appointment  of  incompetent  politi- 
cal favorites  to  army  positions  is  tantamoimt  to  swindling  the 
public,  but  our  countrymen  seem  to  like  it.     What  could  be 


262  THE   DISEASES   OF   SOCIETY 

worse  than  appointing  incompetents  to  care  for  sick  and  wounded 
soldiers?    That  this  was  done  is  well  known. 

For  many  years  the  United  States  has  made  for  the  peace  of 
the  world  by  furnishing  an  alleged  example.  Her  geographic 
isolation  and  the  fact  that  she  is  the  key-stone  of  the  commercial 
arch  have  enabled  her  to  do  this.  The  Monroe  doctrine  has 
been  the  medium  through  which  the  strong  protected  the  weak. 
Our  army  was  once  a  well-organized  police  force,  our  navy  a 
marine  patrol.  Our  instinctive  rapacity  has  been  hidden  from 
the  world  at  large ;  only  the  noble  red  man  has  fully  appreciated 
its  keenness.  The  Spanish-American  War  came,  and  the  United 
States  found  herself  compelled  to  fall  in  line  with  the  other 
anarchists,  and  we  have  been  using  up  the  flower  of  our  youth 
and  cutting  throats  right  merrily  ever  since.  Unavoidable  ?  Oh, 
yes;  having  once  established  ourselves  as  a  first-class  power, 
there  was  nothing  else  to  be  done.  Then,  too,  our  gjeat  and 
glorious  country  is  something  of  a  hypocrite  herself;  human 
nature  is  not  a  matter  of  geography.  She,  too,  likes  the  flesh- 
pots  of  Eg>pt  pretty  well  when  they  come  her  way.  She  has 
robbed,  and  pillaged,  and  starved,  and  annihilated  the  Indian  for 
many  generations,  yet  she  had  maudlin  tears  for  the  reconcen- 
tradoes,  and  bullets  to  protect  the  missionaries  in  China,  while 
her  people  have  gone  hysterical  over  the  fate  of  the  poor  Boer, 
and  have  freely  shed  their  blood  and  dollars  to  civilize  the 
Filipino — who  doesn't  want  to  be  civilized.  Ireland's  poverty 
and  distress  have  cost  America  many  a  heartache,  but  the  out- 
rages perpetrated  upon  the  red  man  have  not  cost  her  sleep, 
save  when  the  revengeful  war-whoop  has  rung  in  her  ears. 
Custer  died  at  the  Little  Big  Horn  like  a  hero,  in  a  "  massacre ;" 
Indian  women  and  children  were  shot  down  at  Wounded  Knee 
in  a  "  battle."  There's  consolation  in  the  proper  use  of  terms. 
One  of  my  friends  saw  a  squaw,  with  the  corpse  of  her  pappoose 
at  her  breast,  lying  dead  tw^elve  miles  from  the  scene  of  the 
fight.  The  white  man  had  run  amok.  The  assassination  of 
Sitting  Bull  and  his  young  son.  Crowfoot,  blackens  the  page 
whereon  is  written  the  history  of  America's  conquest  of  the 
Indian.     Protests  were  sent  from  the  United  States  to  Turkey 


ANARCHY   IN   ITS   RELATIONS   TO  CRIME     263 

and  Russia,  against  the  murder  of  Armenians  and  Jews,  whilst 
our  own  skies  were  blackened  with  the  smoke  of  negro  bonfires 
and  the  yells  of  rioters  were  still  in  oxir  ears.  Our  countn*  ex- 
perienced a  spasm  of  virtuous  indignation  when  Elngland,  grown 
lesperate  at  the  disastrous  results  of  the  Civil  War  upon  her 
commerce,  threatened  to  recognize  the  Southern  Confederacy, 
with  its  well-organized  government,  large  tern  ton.-,  and  half 
milli(xi  soldiers,  but  there  was  very  Uttle  frothing  at  the  mouth 
when  our  government  recognized  Panama,  with  its  half-clad, 
infantile  soldier}-,  farcical  government,  and  population  as  igno- 
rant as  it  is  sparse.  Neither  did  our  body  patriotic  get  excited 
when  we  quarrelled  with  Chili  at  the  behest  of  a  pri\'ate  corpora- 
ticm.  When  our  .minister  at  Hawaii  recognized  the  revolutionists 
in  Honolulu,  within  one  hour  after  their  final  coup  was  made, 
the  majority  of  our  people  bore  up  without  special  complaint, 
while  the  Hawaiian-American  sugar-planter,  for  whose  benefit 
the  rebellion  was  organized,  smiled  in  his  sleeve.  Walker,  the 
filibuster,  recognized  the  inconsistency  of  his  country,  when  he 
died  rather  than  acknowledge  his  citizenship.  Noting  these 
things,  one  can  better  understand  Herbert  Spencer,  who  said 
that  no  adverse  criticism  affected  him  so  little  as  the  charge  that 
he  lacked  patriotism.  The  sincere  patriotism  that  was  once  the 
bed-rock  principle  of  our  own  coimtrj'  is  fast  beccaning  a  mix- 
ture of  grab  and  buncombe. 

War  in  general  is  a  cause  of  vice  and  crime  that  deserves 
very  thoughtful  consideration.  Men  who  sene  under  the  flag 
for  some  time  are  often  unfitted  for  honest  industry,  for  one  or 
all  of  several  reasons :  ( i )  Impaired  constitution  from  legitimate 
diseases  incidental  to  army  life  and  exposure.  (2>  Crippling 
from  venereal  diseases,  prevalent  in  armies.  (3")  Crippling:  from 
wounds.  (4)  Viciousness  and  depravity  acquired  in  the  service. 
Men  congregated  together  tend  to  sink  to  the  level  of  the  lowest 
rather  than  to  rise  to  that  of  the  highest.  (;>  Breaking  up  of 
habits  of  industry-,  while  in  camp  especially.  (6^  Mental  inertia 
from  lack  of  brain-work  in  the  service,  {j^  Being  oared  tor  by 
army  machinery-  and  not  compelled  to  rely  up«.''n  his  own  re- 
sources.    (8)  Alcoholism  contracteil  in  the  ann.y.       o'  The  loss 


264  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

of  wage-earning  positions  that  cannot  be  regained  on  quitting 
the  service. 

The  unavoidable  demoralization  of  the  men  of  this  country 
by  the  Civil  War  is  well-nigh  forgotten.  That  resulting  from 
the  Spanish-American  War  is  still  evident.  England  is  just  now 
wondering  what  to  do  with  her  ex-soldiers  of  the  Boer  War. 

War  is  itself  a  gigantic  crime — the  focal  point  of  the  anarchy 
of  governments.  The  professional  soldier  is  part  of  a  monstrous 
criminal  machine.  He  is  a  professional  and  scientific  murderer. 
Besides  murder,  he  often  learns  robbery,  arson,  and  rapine.  If 
he  does  not  learn  these  things,  it  is  not  from  lack  of  object- 
lessons. 

The  influence  of  the  good  men  in  large  armies  counts  for  but 
little.  The  bad  comes  to  the  surface,  and  the  average  moral 
standard  of  the  men  is  lower  than  before  enlistment.  Here, 
again,  operates  the  specific  gravity  of  morals.  The  monotony 
of  camp-life  has  an  influence  that  is  especially  bad.  However 
apologists  for  war  may  argue,  the  stern  fact  remains  that  disease, 
prostitution,  pauperism,  vagabondism,  and  crime  follow  in  its 
train. 

Aubry  says  that  war  is  a  neurosis,  a  contagious,  homicidal 
insanity.*  While  this  may  not  be  strictly  true  at  the  beginning, 
it  is  what  war  finally  becomes. 

As  bearing  upon  the  relation  of  war  to  crime,  the  recent  in- 
crease of  drunkenness,  pauperism,  and  crime  in  Great  Britain 
is  remarkable.  The  number  of  paupers  in  England  and  Wales 
in  1901  was  eighteen  thousand  greater  than  in  1900,  and  during 
the  eleven  months  of  1902,  ending  with  November,  this  increase 
was  swelled  thirteen  thousand  more,  the  increase  being  greatest 
in  London,  where  the  workhouses  are  overcrowded.  The  in- 
crease of  persons  sentenced  to  penal  servitude  in  1901  was  193, 
and  of  persons  sentenced  to  ordinary  imprisonment,  17,163. 
The  increase  of  crime  was  general  throughout  England.  As  to 
drunkenness,  the  convictions  of  persons  for  the  three  years, 
1893-95,  were  150,000;   for  1896-98,  169,000;  for  the  last  three 

*La  Contagion  du  Meurtre,  Paris,  1888. 


ANARCHY    IN    ITS    RELATIONS    TO   CRIME     265 

years,  189,000.  In  London  the  increase  was  from  an  average 
of  27,000  a  year  to  41,000.  The  number  of  vagrants  reheved 
daily  in  the  workhouses  increased  last  year  by  twenty  per  cent., 
and,  as  compared  with  ten  years  ago,  by  one  hundred  per  cent. 
In  the  mean  time,  deposits  in  the  savings-banks  have  been  falHng 
off  fast. 

What  are  the  causes  of  these  most  serious  symptoms,  re- 
flecting, as  they  do,  the  conditions  of  the  poorer  classes?  Le 
Fevre  says, — 

"  They  are  intimately  connected  with  the  late  war  and  the  conse- 
quent increased  pressure  on  the  poorest  of  the  laboring  population  in 
connection  with  taxes  on  many  of  the  necessaries  of  life,  the  consequent 
higher  prices,  and  the  falling  off  of  employment,  especially  since  the 
conclusion  of  the  war."  * 

The  probable  effect  of  the  war  strain  in  increasing  neu- 
ropathy in  Great  Britain  must  not  be  forgotten. 

POLITICAL   ANARCHY 

Political  anarchy  as  a  cause  of  crime  is  not  limited  to 
America,  but  nowhere  is  it  so  potent  a  factor  in  criminality  as 
in  this  country.  Our  political  conditions  have  resulted  in  some 
of  the  most  gigantic  crimes  in  history.  The  Tilden-Hayes  im- 
broglio, in  1876,  resulting  in  the  stealing  of  the  Presidency  by 
the  Republican  party,  was  one  of  the  most  flagrant  examples. 
This  affair  showed  that  party,  not  men  nor  principles,  governs 
our  national  elections.  With  corruption  at  the  fountain-head, 
what  is  to  be  expected  of  our  lesser  governmental  systems, — 
State  and  municipal? 

The  morale  of  the  citizens  of  the  United  States  is  more 
seriously  disturbed  and  perverted  by  the  evil  examples  set  by 
politicians — of  whatever  creed — than  by  anything  that  could  be 
mentioned.  It  matters  not  which  party  is  in  power,  the  result 
is  the  same.  The  "outs"  lay  all  corruption  and  venality  at  the 
door  of  the  "  ins."     The  voter  sees  and  rebels  at  the  evils  of 


*  Shaw  Le  Fevre,  The  Speaker,  London. 


266  THE   DISEASES   OF    SOCIETY 

the  spoils  system,  but  gets  no  further  satisfaction  than  the  read- 
ing of  the  accusations  and  counter-accusations  of  the  various 
poHtical  parties.  Many  respectable  citizens  refuse  to  go  to  the 
polls,  simply  because  they  know  that  an  honest  man's  vote  is  lost 
in  the  maelstrom  of  corruption  on  either  side.  Some  men  object 
to  being  particeps  criminis  in  political  corruption,  even  to  the 
extent  of  casting  a  single  vote, — a  drop  in  the  bucket  of  party 
politics.  The  youth  of  our  land  are  educated  in  the  belief  that 
all's  fair  in  politics,  that  crime  assumes  a  different  and  less  for- 
bidding mien  when  perpetrated  in  the  name  of  party  or  political 
machine,  or  even  by  an  office-holding  creature  of  either.  The 
dangerous  doctrine  enunciated  by  Dumas,  in  '*  Monte  Cristo," 
has  been  too  often  accepted  literally :  "  We  do  not  kill  men  in 
politics ;   we  remove  obstacles." 

The  records  of  both  our  great  parties  are  black, — stained  by 
evil  deeds  perpetrated  for  the  purpose  of  securing  and  holding 
office,  and  for  individual  or  party  financial  profit  during  the 
administration  of  office.  The  prospect  of  national  dishonor,  or 
even  national  disaster,  does  not  deter  the  politician.  A  revolu- 
tion of  the  financial  system  of  the  country  was  the  objective 
point  of  the  Democratic  party  in  1896- 1900.  The  shrieker  of 
the  free  silver  slogan  cared  for  naught  but  party  supremacy. 
Even  granting  the  correctness  of  the  free  silver  doctrine,  a 
sudden  change  in  our  monetary  system  could  only  have  resulted 
in  disaster.  But,  "  anything  for  an  issue ;  anything  to  win,"  is 
the  motto  of  our  politicians.  Time  has  swept  away  the  last  ves- 
tige of  any  claim  that  the  free  silver  men  had  to  consideration. 
But  it  was  not  their  fault  that  the  country  was  not  ruined.  And 
good  men  were  fooled  by  the  specious  theories  of  the  would-be 
destroyers.  So  much  the  more  dangerous  they.  When  so  great 
and  wise  a  man  as  the  late  John  P.  Altgeld  accepts  such  per- 
nicious doctrines  as  that  of  free  silver,  the  situation  is  pre- 
carious. Independently  of  the  cogency  of  the  free  silver  plat- 
form, the  fact  remains  that,  to  win  its  point,  either  political 
party  is  willing  to  ride  the  shakiest  Rocinante  of  a  theory  ever 
conceived  by  a  paranoiac,  and  is  not  particular  as  to  methods. 

The  history  of  our  Southern  States  has  been  checkered  with 


ANARCHY    IN    ITS    RELATIONS    TO   CRIME     267 

political  crimes  galore.  The  South  has  ever  been  the  arena  in 
which  the  political  criminals  of  America  have  fought  their  most 
numerous  and  hardest  battles.  From  the  close  of  the  War  of 
the  Rebellion — the  most  terrible  crime  in  history — until  the 
present  day  the  South  has  been  a  seething  turmoil  of  political 
discontent,  bitter  struggles  for  supremacy,  and  criminal  acts 
resulting  therefrom.  Wrongs  perpetrated  to  right  or  prevent 
wrongs, — the  perpetration  of  one  crime  to  offset  another, — this 
has  been  the  dominant  characteristic  of  Southern  politics,  and 
for  every  political  crime  committed  in  the  South  there  has  been 
a  crime  to  antidote. 

The  criminal  politics  of  the  South  was  primarily  necessitated 
by  the  colossal  wrong  inflicted  upon  that  unfortunate  section  of 
the  country  by  the  Republican  party  giving  the  recently  freed 
negroes  the  elective  franchise.  Conquered,  impoverished  and 
discouraged,  his  home  in  ashes  or  dismantled,  his  land  laid 
waste,  the  Southern  white  had  troubles  enough  to  stagger 
humanity.  It  remained  for  the  conqueror  to  pile  Pelion  upon 
Ossa  by  bestowing  upon  some  millions  of  ignorant  blacks  politi- 
cal equality  with  the  whites,  an  equality  which  the  recipient  did 
not  need,  much  less  know  how  to  use  intelligently.  With  the 
antagonism  of  the  whites  added  to  his  natural  social  and  racial 
handicaps,  the  elements  necessary  for  the  negro's  demoralization 
were  complete.  The  white  man  had  once  been  his  friend,  so  far 
as  the  curse  of  bondage  would  permit;  whatever  may  be  said 
of  slavery,  this  much  holds  true.  Such  opportunities  as  he  had 
enjoyed,  which  raised  him  above  his  cannibal  ancestors,  came 
through  his  masters.  He  was  now  arrayed  against  his  former 
masters ;   the  Republican  party  had  attended  to  that. 

The  enfranchisement  of  the  negro  was  excused  by  the  prin- 
ciple of  liberty  and  the  rights  of  man.  Its  real  explanation  was 
the  desire  of  the  dominant  political  party  to  shirk  its  own  re- 
sponsibility and  enroll  the  ignorant  blacks  under  the  banner  of 
those  who  had  freed  them  and  given  them  political  equality. 
Nobody  was  fooled  but  the  negro,  and  even  he  had  some  inkling 
of  the  truth,  which  accounted  for  the  arrogance  he  sometimes 
displayed. 


268  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

The  darksome  days  of  reconstruction  will  never  be  forgotten 
in  the  South.  Crimes  were  committed  on  both  sides.  Demo- 
crats and  Republicans,  the  Ku-Klux  Klan  and  the  Copperhead, 
may  divide  their  responsibilities.  "  Honors  were  easy."  What- 
ever crimes  have  been  committed  by  either  party  belong  to  the 
category  of  American  political  crimes.  The  question  now 
arises.  In  how  far  the  South  should  be  blamed  for  them? 

I  am  not  going  to  attempt  a  sweeping  condonation  of  all  the 
crimes  perpetrated  in  the  South  in  behalf  of  politics.  Neither 
shall  I  condemn  them  all.  Many  of  the  evil  deeds  perpetrated 
in  the  South  have  been  unwarranted  and  useless.  Others,  again, 
were  justifiable  in  motive  and  altruistic  in  results.  My  purpose 
is  merely  to  present  a  brief  statement  of  the  conditions  under- 
lying them. 

The  negro  has  multiplied  very  rapidly,  and  the  race  problem 
in  politics  has  assumed  most  formidable  proportions.  In  many 
sections  of  the  South  the  negroes,  if  cleverly  handled,  would 
hold  the  balance  of  political  power.  Experience  has  shown  that 
the  ignorant  negro  in  authority,  like  other  ignorant  persons  in 
the  same  situation,  is  not  a  valuable  addition  to  the  body  politic. 
He  is  arrogant,  overbearing,  and  in  many  ways  offensive.  The 
ordinary  uneducated  negro  will  take  the  entire  sidewalk  when 
he  can  get  it,  and  displays  domineering  airs  that  are  ill-tolerated 
by  the  Southern  whites.  In  an  official  position  he  is  much 
worse.  The  Southern  white,  after  the  enfranchisement  of  the 
negro,  had  but  two  choices  of  attitude  towards  him, — viz.,  (i) 
he  could  submit  to  the  law  and  give  the  negro  his  rights,  and 
insure  white  being  ruled  by  black,  or  (2)  he  could  break  the 
law  by  force  or  intimidation,  moral  or  physical,  and  himself  rule 
the  South. 

Choosing  the  first  horn  of  the  dilemma,  he  must  reconcile 
himself  to  political,  social  and  financial  ruin.  His  property 
would  not  be  worth  ten  cents  on  the  dollar,  nor  would  the  per- 
sons of  his  family  be  safe. 

Must  he  be  ruled  where  he  once  commanded ;  must  he  lose 
the  birthright  for  which  his  forefathers  faced  death  in  battle 
and  untold   hardships   and   shed   their  blood   like   rain?     The 


ANARCHY    IN    ITS    RELATIONS    TO   CRIME     269 

blood  of  the  old  Cavaliers  ran  in  his  veins,  and  he  rebelled.  He 
could  not  breed  voters  so  fast  as  could  the  negro.  He  was, 
unlike  him,  persona  non  grata  with  the  reigning  party,  but  he 
could  shoot  better,  and  had  the  wherewithal  to  do  it.  And  so, 
out  of  the  primary  crimes  of  politics.  Southern  manhood  evolved 
new  crimes,  which  could  only  be  fairly  judged  by  the  man  upon 
the  ground ;  certainly  not  by  the  '*  Bloody  Shirt"  dailies  of  the 
North.  He  who  would  understand  "  pistol-pocket  politics" 
would  better  live  in  the  South  for  a  while. 

Causes  and  sympathy  aside,  the  fact  remains  that  politics  in 
the  South  has  been  tinctured  with  criminality  for  many  years. 
The  moral  eflFect  upon  our  political  system  has  been  evil,  the 
infusion  of  anarchy  into  the  minds  of  our  youth  has  been 
worse.  Brave  and  good  men  have  died  in  individual  quarrels 
growing  out  of  the  spirit  of  anarchy  born  in  the  evil  days  of 
reconstruction.  The  shades  of  Swope,  Goodloe,  and  Goebel,  of 
Kentucky,  and  many  others  bear  me  witness.  It  is  not  long 
since  Lieutenant-Governor  Tillman,  of  South  Carolina,  shot 
Editor  Gonzales,  who  differed  with  him  in  politics,  and  was  tried 
and  acquitted. 

Long  before  the  days  of  reconstruction  in  the  South,  long 
before  the  Rebellion,  a  pace  was  set  for  violence  in  American 
politics.  The  duel  in  which  Alexander  Hamilton  fell  before 
Burr's  pistol,  was  the  forebear  of  that  alleged  duel  in  San  Fran- 
cisco, in  which  poor  Dave  Broderick  died  at  the  hands  of  that 
double-dyed  ruffian  and  erstwhile  jurist  and  senator.  Judge 
Terry,  for  whose  death  we  should  never  cease  to  thank  the 
Western  frontiersman — nominally  a  deputy  marshal — who  shot 
him. 

The  story  of  forceful  politics  in  the  South,  as  I  have  said, 
is  by  no  means  one-sided.  Tourgee,  in  "  Bricks  without  Straw," 
and  Dixon,  in  the  "  Leopard's  Spots,"  had  a  world  of  material 
from  which  to  draw  partisan  evidence.  Politics  and  human 
nature  being  as  they  are,  lawlessness  on  both  sides  was  inevitable 
under  the  conditions  prevailing  in  the  South.  But  let  us  put  the 
responsibility  for  the  general  anarchial  trend  of  Southern  poli- 
tics where  it  really  belongs, — at  the  door  of  those  who  enfran- 


2^  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

chised,  for  political  power,  five  millions  of  ignorant  blacks  who 
were  not  ready  for  assimilation  as  free  factors  by  a  civilized 
people. 

A  recent  riot  in  the  Illinois  Legislature,  excited  by  the 
Speaker's  refusal  to  allow  a  roll-call  on  an  important  bill,  was 
an  illustration  of  the  extremes  to  which  American  politicians 
occasionally  carry  their  defiance  of  the  Federal  Constitution,  at 
the  behest  of  political  machines. 

MUNICIPAL    ANARCHY 

The  conduct  of  nations  in  the  matter  of  international  con- 
troversies is,  as  I  have  remarked,  the  focal  point  of  the  anarchy 
of  governments.  It  is  the  most  colossal  of  anarchistic  phe- 
nomena. Descending  from  it  by  a  very  gradual  scale,  one  in 
which  there  are  but  few  interruptions,  we  find,  especially  in 
America,  that  every  phase  of  government,  from  Congress  down 
to  the  pettiest  political  office,  is  part  of  a  system  by  which  the 
few  enrich  and  aggrandize  themselves  at  the  expense  of  the 
many.  Honest  legislation,  honest  administration  of  public 
offices,  equitable  taxation,  respect  for  property  rights  on  the 
part  of  administrative  authority, — these  are  Utopian  dreams. 
From  top  to  bottom,  our  political  systems  are  so  permeated  with 
corruption  that  politics  and  corruption  are,  in  effect,  almost 
synonymous.  Political  and  governmental  corruption  begins  in 
the  caucus,  crystallizes  in  ruffianism,  dishonesty,  bulldozing, 
and  sometimes  murder  at  the  polls,  and  finally  culminates  in 
official  venality  and  crime.  "  Government  by  the  people  for 
the  people"  is  a  beautiful  myth,  a  phantasm  of  optimistic 
imagination,  a  tradition  of  the  days  when  there  were  patriotic 
giants  in  the  arena  of  American  politics. 

The  fact  that  the  average  public  official  has  his  price  is  so 
familiar  that  it  is  treated  as  a  huge  joke,  to  the  everlasting  shame 
of  our  body  politic.  It  ceases  to  be  a  joke  only  when  political 
capital  can  be  made  of  it  by  the  opposition  ;  which  is  always 
hungrily  and  enviously  watching  the  place  at  the  public  crib 
held  by  the  "  other  fellow."  The  gap  between  a  Congressman 
juggling  with  capitalistic  interests,  a  "  protective"  tariff  levied 


ANARCHY    IN    ITS    RELATIONS    TO   CRIME     271 

in  behalf  of  greedy  trusts,  or  an  Isthmian  Canal  scheme,  and  an 
alderman  playing  a  franchise  game,  is  not  to  be  measured  in 
morals,  but  in  dollars.  The  aldermanic  mouse  would  be  a  con- 
gressional tiger  if  he  could.  Our  administrative,  aye,  even  our 
law  machinery,  is  the  slave  of  the  dollar.  The  people,  whose 
creatures  public  officials  are  supposed  to  be,  "  pay  the  freight." 

Individual  rights  are  absolutely  submerged  in  the  filth  of  our 
political  system.  A  poor  man  is  to-day  assessed  for  street 
paving  at  treble  its  actual  cost.  The  pavement — and  a  bad  one 
— is  laid,  and  to-morrow  comes  a  "  fake"  gas  company  with  a 
purchased  franchise,  that  tears  up  the  street,  lays  its  pipes,  and 
leaves  the  property-owner  to  console  himself  for  the  ruined 
pavement  as  best  he  can.  In  strict  justice,  the  property-owner 
should  be  empowered  to  repel  by  force  and  arms  the  first  man 
who  disturbs  his  pavement.  "  But  he  has  recourse  to  the  law." 
Oh,  yes;  let  him  sue;  law  is  so  cheap,  and  justice  so  easy  to 
secure.  They  are  luxuries  that  are  within  the  reach  of  every 
poor  man. 

Municipalities  rob  the  people  boldly :  An  assessment  is  levied 
for  public  improvement.  The  tax-payer  settles  at  the  rate  of 
two  or  three  for  one.  A  rebate  is  due  him,  even  after  the  thieving 
contractor  and  the  politicians  controlling  the  job  have  drawn 
their  pint  of  blood  from  the  public  veins.  If  the  tax-payer  lives 
long  enough,  he  gets  his  rebate,  but,  unfortunately,  the  longevity 
of  the  man  who  is  taxed  is  usually  not  great  enough  to  enable 
him  to  balance  his  ledger. 

The  flagrant  outrages  committed  upon  the  public  by  its  self- 
imposed  system  of  governmental  and  political  plunderers  are  so 
numerous  that  it  would  require  several  volumes  to  merely  intro- 
duce them.  I  will  therefore  limit  myself  on  this  point  to  the 
vital  question  of  municipal  anarchy. 

The  principles  governing  the  plunder  of  the  public  are  the 
same  in  all  municipalities.  There  is  a  difference  of  degree,  per- 
haps, but  this  signifies  merely  a  difference  in  opportunities. 
The  recent  systematic  robbery  and  corruption  in  ATinncapolis 
and  St.  Louis  are  criteria  of  what  is  going  on  in  greater  or  less 
degree  in  every  large  city  in  this  country.     According  to  the 


272  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

published  accounts  the  Minneapolis  scandal  was  the  most  fla- 
grant example  of  "  discovered"  official  and  political  rottenness 
known  in  our  history.  Every  department  of  the  city  adminis- 
tration was  part  of  a  gigantic  scheme  of  graft,  which  levied 
upon  everything  and  everybody  susceptible  to  the  magical 
"  touch"  of  the  public  official.  Prostitute,  gambler,  shell-worker, 
robber,  keeper  of  the  disreputable  house, — all  were  served  alike, 
and  compelled  to  submit  to  the  "  protective  tariff"  levied  by  the 
Minneapolis  Graft  Corporation,  Limited.  There  was  a  wheel 
within  a  wheel,  for  the  big  fish  sold  the  little  fish  places  with 
grafting  privileges.  The  patrolman  and  the  detective  paid  trib- 
ute to  those  above  them,  and  levied  in  turn  on  those  below  them. 
There  were  things  "  doing"  in  the  under  world,  and  'twas  easy 
to  break  out  of  jail,  if  one  knew  how,  and  the  officer  who  failed 
to  call  attention  to  the  administrative  open  palm,  could  neither 
hold  his  job  nor  pick  crumbs  from  the  grafter's  table.  The 
administration  opened  with  a  revolution  on  the  police  force. 
The  thieves  in  the  local  jail  were  liberated.  Swindlers  coming 
to  the  city  reported  to  the  chief  of  detectives — formerly  a 
gambler — or  his  staff  for  instructions,  and  went  to  work  with  a 
will,  turning  over  the  spoils  to  the  detective  in  charge.  Gam- 
bling went  on  openly,  and  disorderly  houses  multiplied. 

The  municipal  system  of  vice  protection  was  broken  into 
openly.  Minneapolis  forbade  vice,  and  then  regularly  permitted 
it,  under  certain  conditions.  Disorderly  houses  were  practically 
licensed  by  the  city,  women  appearing  each  month  to  pay  a 
"  fine"  of  one  hundred  dollars.  Unable  at  first  to  get  this 
"  graft,"  women  were  persuaded  to  start  houses,  apartments,  and 
candy  stores,  which  sold  tobacco  or  sweets  to  children  in  front, 
while  a  nefarious  traffic  was  carried  on  in  the  rear.  But  the 
women  paid  the  city  officials,  not  the  city. 

Gambling  privileges  were  let  without  restriction ;  gambling 
syndicates  could  rob  and  cheat  at  will.  Peddlers  and  pawn- 
brokers, formerly  licensed,  now  bought  permits  from  the  gang's 
agent.  Some  two  hundred  slot-machines  were  installed  in  vari- 
ous parts  of  the  town,  a  political  agent  collecting  from  them 
fifteen  thousand  dollars  a  year.    But  prostitutes  were  the  easiest 


ANARCHY    IN    ITS   RELATIONS    TO   CRIME     273 

victims.  They  were  compelled  to  buy  illustrated  biographies  of 
the  city  officials,  and  to  give  presents  of  money,  jewelry,  and  gold 
stars  to  police  officers.  They  still  paid  direct  to  the  city,  in  fines, 
some  thirty-five  thousand  dollars  a  year.  The  final  outrage  was 
an  order  for  periodic  visits  to  disorderly  houses  by  the  city's 
physicians,  at  from  five  dollars  to  twenty  dollars  per  visit.  These 
physicians  called  frequently.  Towards  the  end  the  calls  became 
a  mere  formality,  the  collections  being  the  only  object. 

The  excesses  of  the  administration  became  so  notorious  as 
to  alarm  certain  county  officers.  The  sheriff  arrested  a  few 
gamblers.  He  was  removed  from  office.  The  final  breakdown 
of  the  system  came  from  dissensions  within.  The  conspirators 
began  to  rob  one  another,  and  the  end  was  near.  The  whole 
system  finally  became  so  demoralized  that  every  man  grafted 
for  himself  and  gave  his  associates  the  worst  of  it. 

At  this  time,  April,  1903,  the  grand  jury  was  drawn,  with 
Hovey  C.  Clarke  as  foreman.  This  man  determined  to  break  up 
the  graft  gang,  and,  despite  attempts  at  bribery  and  threats  of 
personal  violence,  succeeded  in  doing  so. 

What  startled  the  grand  jury  most  was  the  poltroonery  of 
many  of  its  reputable  citizens  who  were  appealed  to  for  evidence. 
"  No  reform  has  ever  failed  to  bring  out  this  virtuous  cowardice 
and  baseness  of  the  decent  citizen,"  says  one  writer.  Nothing 
stopped  the  jury,  however.  It  indicted  all  the  principal  mem- 
bers of  the  gang,  and  many  lesser  lights.  A  number  of  the 
gang  were  finally  convicted  and  sentenced  to  prison.^** 

The  Minneapolis  scandal  has  not  been  without  amusing  as 
well  as  instructive  features.  The  spasm  of  virtuous  surprise 
and  indignation  that  swept  over  the  country  synchronously  with 
its  publication  should  excite  the  risibilities  of  a  Stoic.  The  ex- 
perience of  Minneapolis  was  severe,  it  is  true,  but,  as  already 
remarked,  the  conditions  in  that  city  were  in  no  wise  worse  in 
principle  than  those  prevailing  in  every  large  city  in  this  country. 
The  freebooters  became  over-bold  and  covetous,  and  were 
caught, — that  is  all.    They  lacked  the  "  fine  Italian  hand"  of  the 

"  Vide  Mr.  Steffen's  article  in  McChirc's  Magazine,  January,  1903. 

18 


274  THE   DISEASES   OF    SOCIETY 

skillful  "  grafter."  In  every  large  municipality  there  are  often 
but  two  classes,  from  the  stand-point  of  government, — viz.,  the 
wolves  and  the  lambs.  The  wolves  usually  do  the  governing  and 
the  lambs  do  the  voting.  And  the  municipal  wolf  is  not  unlike 
the  Australian  fox,  who  tears  out  his  victim's  tongue  and  lets 
him  bleed  to  death.  The  municipal  wolf  effectually  prevents 
his  victim  from  voicing  a  protest,  and  then  devours  him  at  his 
leisure.  The  wolf  has  no  tears  for  his  victims.  The  corrupt 
municipal  system  which,  in  combination  with  private  greed, 
murdered  nearly  six  hundred  citizens  at  the  Iroquois  Theatre 
has  no  time  for  mourning  anything  but  its  loss  of  political 
prestige.  King  Graft  of  America's  blood  royal  has  no  con- 
science to  twinge  him. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  state  that  the  police  of  every  large 
city  is  a  huge  co-operative  business  organization,  working,  to 
a  certain  degree,  hand  in  hand  with  the  vicious  and  criminal 
classes.  Once  a  participation  by  the  police  in  the  profits  of  vice 
and  crime  is  shown,  co-operation  of  police  and  crime  is  proved. 
There  is  no  better  police  system  than  Chicago's  in  some  respects, 
and  civil  service  is  improving  it  every  day,  but  that  it  has  ever 
been  tinctured  with  venality  must  be  admitted.^^  The  best  of 
chiefs  and  the  best  of  mayors  would  find  it  difficult  to  rise  above 
an  established  system.  Only  a  few  years  ago  the  chief  of  police 
of  New  Orleans  was  assassinated  for  trying  to  do  his  duty.  If 
the  voter  ever  comprehends  the  conditions  and  incidentally  comes 
to  understand  human  nature,  he  will  puzzle  his  head  less  over 
the  queer  things  in  municipal  government. 

Apropos  of  police  systems  as  a  business  proposition,  there 
are  some  very  interesting  and  suggestive  points.  In  the  first 
place,  the  police  of  every  large  American  city  know  the  per- 
sonnel and  whereabouts  of  nearly  all  of  its  professional  thieves. 
Conditions  are  the  same  abroad.  It  is  said  that  there  are  seventy 
thousand  criminals  in  England  who  are  known  to  the  police. 

"  Since  the  above  was  written,  certain  exposures  of  official  corrup- 
tion and  the  establishment  of  the  Chicago  "  Graft  Commission"  have 
become  matters  of  history. 


ANARCHY    IN    ITS    RELATIONS    TO   CRIME     275 

The  police  do  not  usually  interfere  with  the  criminal,  however, 
until  crime  is  actually  committed.  Unless  the  crime  is  very 
sensational,  the  police  often  lack  energy  in  bringing  the  culprit 
to  justice,  for  reasons  best  known  to  themselves.  The  "  pull"  of 
some  criminals  is  something  remarkable.  Well-known  thugs 
and  thieves  are  important  factors  in  the  politics  of  every  large 
city  in  this  country.  If  an  individual  is  robbed,  and  demands 
justice  and  the  restoration  of  property,  reporting  the  matter 
often  does  very  little  good  unless  the  victim  has  an  influential 
"  growl"  to  emit,  and  keeps  it  up  so  long  and  so  loudly  that  the 
police  are  compelled  to  listen.  Obscure  criminals  are  treated 
somewhat  differently  from  the  masters  in  crime.  They  are 
likely  to  be  hounded  into  the  commission  of  new  crimes. 

In  many  instances  where  men  are  robbed  by  women  thieves, 
the  circumstances  are  such  that  the  victim  does  not  dare  to 
make  much  noise  over  his  loss.  The  police  are  not  slow  to  take 
advantage  of  this,  especially  when  strangers  are  the  victims. 
The  victim  is  only  too  willing  to  compromise,  get  part  of  his 
money  back,  and  leave  town  at  the  earliest  possible  moment. 
The  thieves  make  their  offer,  it  is  accepted,  and  a  short  time 
later  the  woman  criminal  is  compelled  to  divide  her  spoils  with 
the  police.  This  system  of  robbery  is  going  on  in  every  Ameri- 
can metropolis.  I  base  this  statement  upon  interviews  I  have 
had  with  members  of  the  police  departments  of  a  number  of 
cities. 

When  a  thief  steals  a  diamond  from  some  one's  shirt  front 
in  one  of  our  large  cities,  the  police  have  usually  no  trouble  in 
locating  the  experts  capable  of  doing  the  job.  If  the  party 
complaining  of  the  loss  is  not  influential,  or  the  thief  is  not 
persona  non  grata  to  the  "  front  office,"  the  stone  is  likely  never 
to  be  heard  from  again.  If  the  opposite  is  the  case,  the  jewel  is 
soon  adorning  its  owner's  imposing  front  once  more.  A  certain 
inspector  of  police  was  once  robbed  of  a  valuable  diamond,  as 
he  expressed  it,  "  just  like  any  jay."  Word  was  sent  "  along 
the  line"  that  somebody  had  made  a  mistake, — "  A  friend  of  the 
front  office  has  been  touched."  Within  twelve  hours  the  stone 
was  in  its  rightful  owner's  hands. 


2^6  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

And  some  of  this,  perhaps,  is  as  it  should  be.  A  police  force 
"  on  the  square"  would  be  useful  chiefly  in  keeping  order  and 
assisting  ladies  across  the  street-corners.  It  would  accomplish 
little  in  preventing  crime.  The  public  takes  it  for  granted  that 
our  detectives  are  built  after  the  pattern  of  Vidocq,  Hawkshaw, 
Fouche,  or  Sherlock  Homes.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  if  the  police 
force  did  not  keep  in  intimate  touch  with  the  under  world,  it 
would  be  almost  helpless  in  trapping  criminals.  The  co-opera- 
tion of  other  criminals  is  often  necessary  to  the  capture  of  one. 
The  old  adage  that  "  it  takes  a  thief  to  catch  a  thief"  is  fully 
exemplified  in  the  police  business  of  our  large  cities.  The  re- 
morseless, omniscient  sleuth  with  gigantic  intellect,  eagle  eye, 
ear  attuned  to  even  the  whisperings  of  the  mind,  and  a  scent 
like  a  bloodhound,  never  steps  out  from  between  the  yellow 
covers  where  he  is  placed  by  blood-and-thunder  romancists,  the 
meat  of  a  literary  sandwich  for  the  delectation  of  youth  and 
Queens  of  the  Back  Stairs.  The  real  article  of  detective  usually 
catches  his  man  when  the  latter  has  been  betrayed  by  some  other 
thief,  or  by  some  under-world  Delilah,  for  human  passion  burns 
even  in  the  criminal's  breast,  and  female  treachery  lurks  in  the 
bosom  of  his  frail  consort. 

Once  upon  a  time,  a  pool-room  opened  in  C This  was 

against  the  law,  but  the  payment  of  five  hundred  dollars  monthly 
to  certain  police  officials  gave  a  snowy  complexion  to  the  enter- 
prise. The  money  was  paid  regularly,  in  advance.  On  the  first 
of  a  certain  month  the  tariff  was  duly  paid.  On  the  third  of  the 
same  month,  the  book-maker  received  a  visitor  from  the  sheriff's 
office,  who  said,  "  We  want  some,  too."  "  How  much  ?"  quoth 
the  pool-seller.  "  The  same  amount  you  pay  the  other  fellows," 
was,  in  substance,  the  reply.  And  that  day  fell  the  curtain  upon 
the  aforesaid  pool-room.    Said  the  proprietor,  "  I  am  willing  to 

work  for  those  d d  grafters  half  the  time,  but  not  all  the 

time.  I  must  have  a  percentage  for  myself."  It  is  said  that  the 
facts  in  this  case  were  laid  before  a  certain  newspaper,  but 
publication  was  refused. 

And  so  the  game  goes  briskly  on  in  every  large  city  in  this 
country.     Individual  policemen  commit  burglary  and  blackmail, 


ANARCHY    IN    ITS    RELATIONS    TO   CRIME     277 

and  are  brouglit  to  book.  The  system  that  makes  criminals  of 
them  is  rarely  compelled  to  settle  its  account  with  the  public. 
Minneapolis  and  St.  Louis  are  to  be  congratulated  on  tfieir  ex- 
perience. Like  a  thunder-storm,  it  will  clear  the  air  for  a  while, 
— until  Rip  Van  Winkle — the  public — goes  to  sleep  again. 
Meanwhile,  certain  poor  policemen  on  a  thousand  a  year  will 
still  be  able  to  wear  large  solitaires  in  their  shirt-fronts,  while 
their  superior  officers  can  go  on  buying  real  estate  on  their 
modest  incomes.  Of  course,  the  hobo  will  still  "  Move  on  out 
o'  that,"  and  disorderly  houses  will  continue  to  submit  to 
assessments  of  a  special  kind. 

As  to  the  matter  of  blackmail  by  the  police,  I  quote  the  fol- 
lowing editorial  from  a  recent  issue  of  a  Chicago  daily:  ^^ 

"  Patrolman  ,   detailed  to   look  after   fruit-   and   flower-stands, 

was  brought  before  the  police  trial  board  for  blackmailing.  It  was  said 
that  he  exacted  tribute  systematically  from  the  keepers  of  stands.  Wit- 
nesses testified  that  he  had  taken  fruit  from  them  without  paying  for  it, 
and  that  on  one  occasion  he  terrified  a  dealer  into  giving  him  five  dollars, 
with  the  hint  that  he  might  report  him  for  violating  the  city  ordinances. 
Other  evidence  tended  to  show  that  these  particular  cases  were  merely 
illustrations  of  a  general  policy  of  thievery  and  robbery.  The  trial 
board  found  guilty,  and  decreed  a  fine  of  ten  days'  pay. 

"  The  conclusion  of  the  judges  cannot  be  reconciled  with  the  prem- 
ises. If  the  man  was  guilty,  his  summary  dismissal,  with  a  stinging 
denunciation  of  his  conduct,  is  the  least  that  could  be  asked,  for 
decency's  sake.  Although  there  is  a  provision  in  the  police  ordinances 
for  a  fine  in  cases  of  extortion  by  members  of  the  force,  the  power  to 
remove  for  misconduct  and  infraction  of  the  rule  is  vested  in  the 
authorities,  and  good  policy  demands  its  exercise. 

"  Whether  is  technically  answerable  for  a  crime  or  not,  there 

can  be  no  denying  the  criminal  quality  of  his  offence.  It  is  outrageous 
that  he  should  still  be  allowed  to  masquerade  as  a  guardian  of  the  law. 
Nothing  could  be  more  demoralizing  to  the  department.  Such  conduct 
as  his  should  be  made  punishable  under  express  terms  in  the  criminal 
code,  with  a  penalty  more  severe  than  a  fine  or  discharge." 

The  foregoing  case  is  claimed  by  the  police  to  be  an  isolated 
one.     It  is,  in  the  sense  of  the  culprit  being  caught  in  the  act. 


Chicago  Times-Herald. 


278  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

In  the  face  of  the  recent  conviction  of  several  officers  for  burg- 
lary, those  who  thus  apologize  for  Mr.  would  seem  to  be 

not  devoid  of  subtle  humor. 

Official  corruption  as  a  cause  of  criminality  must  prevail  in 
large  cities  so  long  as  the  credentials  of  an  alderman  are  the 
qualities  of  a  deep,  hard  drinker,  a  good  rough-and-tumble 
fighter,  and  a  man  with  a  pull.  There  has  been,  of  late,  a  tend- 
ency to  a  healthful  change  in  Chicago  in  this  respect,  but  the 
"  gray  wolf"  is  still  in  evidence. 

THE    ANARCHY   OF    CAPITAL   AND   LABOR 

The  two  most  dangerous  elements  of  the  privileged  law- 
breakers in  America  are  the  capitalist  and  the  trades-unionist. 

The  struggle  for  a  fair  adjustment  of  the  relations  between 
employer  and  employed  has  been  going  on  for  many  years.  The 
solution  of  the  problem  seems  as  far  away  as  ever.  Society  is 
still  in  painful  travail,  still  in  the  throes  of  attempted  readjust- 
ment. Meanwhile,  the  public  is  being  ground  to  an  exceeding 
fineness  between  two  mill-stones,  one  of  which  is  labelled  Capital, 
and  the  other  Labor.  The  corruption-spreading  capitalistic 
lobbyist  in  our  legislative  halls  has  his  criminal  counterparts  in 
the  lawless  walking  delegate  and  the  bulldozing  labor  committee, 
with  their  intimidations,  coercions,  occasional  bribes,  and  as- 
saults and  commercially-disastrous,  starvation-producing  strikes. 
There  is  an  occasional  dash  of  murder  to  give  a  further  tinge  of 
realism  to  the  claims  of  labor  for  recognition.  The  present  atti- 
tude towards  the  public  of  both  labor  and  capital  is  anarchy 
rampant.  This  anarchy  is  primarily  so  criminal  in  its  nature, 
and  so  productive  of  secondary  vice  and  crime,  that  its  dangers 
should  be  so  plain  that  even  the  stupidest  individual  could  see  it. 
Accused  of  pessimism  I  may  be,  but  to  me  the  fact  that  the 
country  is  fast  drifting  into  a  sea  of  trouble  worse  than  any  it 
has  ever  experienced  is  only  too  plain.  Great  wrongs  have 
often  been  committed  in  the  attempt  to  right  wrongs.  History 
has  a  trick  of  repetition  that  is  gruesomely  familiar.  The  prin- 
ciple that  actuated  the  aristocrats  of  France  in  riding  rough- 
shod oyer  the  people  is  not  yet  dead.    Neither  is  the  bloodthirsty 


ANARCHY    IN    ITS    RELATIONS    TO   CRIME     279 

spirit  of  the  proletariat,  before  which  the  heads  of  the  aristo- 
cratic bloodsuckers  fell  like  grain  before  the  scythe.  The 
struggle  of  mass  against  class  is  going  on  in  America  to-day, 
just  as  truly  as  before  and  during  the  dark  and  bloody  days  of 
the  French  Revolution.  Patents  of  nobility  gave  to  the  aristo- 
crat the  right  to  rob  and  oppress  the  people.  Corporation  and 
trust  charters  give  the  same  right  to  certain  individuals  in 
America.  Industrial  conditions  are  rapidly  drawing  a  hard  and 
fast  line  between  the  aristocracy  of  wealth  and  the  commonality 
of  labor.  What  pernicious  industrial  conditions  have  left  un- 
done the  Anglo-maniacal  American  snob,  living  on  the  interest 
of  his  fish-vending  or  Indian-robbing  great-grandfather's  money, 
will  complete.  The  fate  of  the  bloated  money-bags  and  self- 
constituted  four  hundred  may  not  be  the  guillotine,  but  the 
brickbat  and  modern  explosives  may  one  day  be  quite  as  popular 
and  effective  in  the  hands  of  proletarian  degenerates  as  was  Dr. 
Guillotin's  instrument  in  France.  The  outcome  will  be  interest- 
ing history  to  the  aristocracy  of  the  future,  builded,  as  it  will  be, 
upon  industry,  brains,  and  cleanliness.  Industrial  conditions 
having  been  righted,  it  will  then  be  incumbent  upon  the  public 
to  purge  itself  of  parasitic,  socially  infectious  degenerates  of  all 
classes,  whether  of  aristocratic  or  plebeian  origin. 

Disastrous  results  have  already  accrued  from  the  conflict 
between  labor  and  capital.  A  revolution  is  sure  to  come  ;  blood- 
less, mayhap,  but  none  the  less  productive  of  misery,  suffering, 
and  crime.  The  handwriting  is  on  the  wall.  That  the  upheaval 
will  be  bloodless  is  not  augured  by  the  experience  of  the  recent 
past.  As  already  stated,  the  anarchistic  troubles  in  Chicago  had 
more  than  fanaticism  at  their  root.  A  lack  of  harmony  between 
capital  and  labor  was  the  fruitful  soil  in  which  the  dragon's 
teeth  of  discontent  were  sown  by  fanatical  Jasons.  The  crop 
of  evils  that  sprang  up  horrified  the  world.  And  that  crop  has 
not  yet  been  harvested  ;  the  whirlwind  is  yet  to  be  reaped.  The 
immolation  of  a  few  discordant  social  integers  on  the  scaffold  of 
public  opinion  did  not  close  the  account.  The  railroad  riots  in 
1877  and  1894,  the  mine  troubles  in  Pennsylvania  in  1902-03, 
the  Colorado  miners'  strike,  and  the  general  butcliers"  strike  in 


28o  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

1904  were  not  bloodless,  and,  moreover,  they  were  forebodings 
of  worse  troubles  to  come. 

It  would  seem  impossible  that  the  general  public  should  go 
on  in  passive  submission  to  present  conditions.  Labor  is  strong, 
and  so  is  capital,  but  once  it  is  thoroughly  aroused,  the  pressure 
of  government  as  an  expression  of  public  opinion  should  be 
stronger.  Unfortunately,  public  opinion  is  slow  in  acquiring 
intelligence,  and  can  only  be  effective  through  the  ballot.  It  will 
be  many  years  before  the  majority  of  voters  will  be  intelligent 
and  the  majority  of  men  available  for  offices  honest  and  altru- 
istic. At  present  our  legislators  are  playing  the  role  of  shuttle- 
cock in  a  game  in  which  the  battledores  are  wielded  respectively 
by  labor's  vote  and  capital's  money.  The  public  is  paying  a 
high  tariff  for  watching  the  game  from  outside  the  fence. 

Public  opinion  is  now  almost  helpless  in  the  issue  under  con- 
sideration. General  prosperity  is  in  the  hands  of  capital  and 
labor;  legislation  is  in  the  hands  of  capital,  and  the  middle- 
man's voice  in  the  matter  is,  of  necessity,  too  feeble  to  be  heard. 
With  the  machinery  of  legislation  and  law  in  the  hands  of  the 
capitalistic  Hercules,  it  is  no  wonder  that  the  illogical  under 
dog  should  resort  to  violent  means  to  right  matters.  It  is  not 
in  human  nature  to  understand  the  principle  that  a  multiplicity 
of  wrongs  cannot  make  a  single  right.  And  so  the  industrial 
Mont  Pelee  will  go  on  grumbling ;  by  and  by  an  eruption  will 
occur,  and  out  of  the  chaos  and  ruin  will  rise,  Phenix-like,  the 
good  genius.  Co-operation.  But  the  ashes  of  the  old  system  will 
be  wet  with  tears,  and  if  past  events  be  a  criterion,  with  redder 
and  thicker  drops. 

The  anomalous  relations  of  capital  and  labor  have  produced, 
and  will  for  many  years  result  in,  violations  of  individual  rights. 
The  right  to  make  money  and  the  right  to  work  must  be  primarily 
conceded.  The  right  to  rob  and  oppress,  the  right  to  build  for- 
tunes out  of  the  very  life-blood  of  the  worker,  and  the  right  to 
throttle  competition  are  denied.  The  right  to  prevent  another 
from  marketing  his  labor  at  any  price  or  in  any  way  he  may 
see  fit,  I  also  deny.  The  worker  must  always  be  the  under  dog 
in  the  battle  of  life,  for,  although  in  primitive  conditions  labor  is 


ANARCHY    IN    ITS    RELATIONS    TO   CRIME     281 

king,  under  modern  civilized  conditions  capital  is  king.  The 
organization  of  labor  would  be  impossible  without  capital,  which 
gives  it  its  opportunities.  The  only  exception  is  agrarian  occu- 
pations, and  this  is  apparent,  not  real.  Capital  is  necessary  to 
secure  land.  On  the  other  hand,  capital  without  labor  would  be 
"  Hamlet"  without  Hamlet. 

I  have  already  dwelt  upon  the  psychic  constitution  of  mobs, 
but  desire  to  make  special  its  application  to  turbulent  strikes  and 
labor  riots.  The  most  obnoxious  features  of  the  psychology  of 
a  crowd  of  riotous  strikers  are  due  to  the  unreasoning  general 
sympathy  that  is  extended  to  them,  and  the  sympathy  in  par- 
ticular of  the  vast  army  of  men  in  affiliation  with  labor  unions. 
With  this  psychic  support  behind  them,  and  in  the  security  of  a 
crowd,  certain  of  the  individuals  composing  a  mob  are  especially 
prone  to  yield  to  the  cowardly  brutality  that  dominates  a  certain 
proportion  of  humanity,  more  particularly  persons  of  untrained 
minds  and  ignorant  prejudices.  Knowing  that  they  can  indulge 
with  comparative  safety  in  the  pastimes  of  assault,  arson,  prop- 
erty destruction,  and  even  murder,  the  vicious  elements  of  a 
mob  of  strikers  give  full  swing  to  their  evil  impulses.  As 
already  remarked,  even  disinterested  onlookers  indulge  in  these 
pleasantries  under  cover  of  a  strike.  Women,  both  sympathizers 
and  those  whose  sympathy  is  assumed,  not  real,  act  like  beasts. 
There  is  something  suggestive  and  human-conceit-destroying  in 
the  spectacle  of  women  throwing  missiles  at  policemen  and  sol- 
diers, or  assisting  in  tearing  up  railroad  tracks  and  burning  cars. 

In  the  wake  of  all  civic  disorders  come  the  hoodlums,  the 
scum  of  society.  Some  are  criminals  outright,  others  are  crim- 
inals by  instinct,  whom  fear  usually  keeps  in  line.  A  great 
strike  is  a  boon  to  such  persons.  They  rejoice  in  the  oppor- 
tunity to  wreck,  burn,  and  steal  property  under  cover  of  the 
crowd.  From  behind  the  petticoats  of  the  women  of  the  neigh- 
borhood the  hoodlums  of  the  strike  wage  pitiless  warfare  on  the 
vested  rights  of  capital  and  on  the  property  of  peaceable  and  law- 
abiding  citizens.  One  may  not  fire  upon  the  intrenchments  of 
skirts  behind  which  the  hoodlum  skulks,  nor  is  glory  to  be  gained 
in   controversies  with   the  women  who  wear   them,   hence   the 


282  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

work  of  destruction  goes  on  under  the  very  eyes  of  the  police 
and  miHtary.  Among  the  hoodhims  may  be  found  boys  of 
respectable  families  to  whom  the  conduct  of  the  rowdy  is  the 
ideal  of  smartness.  Many  a  previously  decent  lad's  criminal 
training  and  career  have  begun  in  this  way. 

It  seems  to  be  understood  by  the  public  at  large,  as  well  as  by 
police  authorities,  that  strikers  are  privileged  characters.  They  are 
permitted  to  do  what  is  denied  to  others,  or  even  to  them,  save  in 
time  of  strikes.  They  may  burn,  assault,  kill,  and  destroy,  often 
with  impunity.  The  by-standers  generally  treat  this  as  a  huge 
joke.  Their  sympathies  are  always  with  the  strikers,  and  against 
law  and  order.  In  this  they  are  usually  at  one  with  the  police. 
Even  the  right  of  self-defence  seems  to  be  denied  the  "  scab." 

My  own  view  is  that  a  man  has  a  right  to  earn  his  living  at 
any  time  and  in  any  honest  manner  he  pleases.  Should  he  be 
assaulted  while  so  doing,  he  should  rise  to  the  question  of  per- 
sonal privilege,  assert  his  manhood,  and  do  his  best  to  incapacitate 
his  assailant  from  further  interference  with  the  rights  of  others. 
A  few  such  examples  of  self-defence  would  do  more  for  law 
and  order  than  barrels  of  legislation.  A  criminal  is  a  criminal, 
whether  he  masquerades  as  a  "  union  man"  or  not.  The  "  scab" 
is  worthy  of  more  respect  than  the  men  who  assault  him.  He 
might  steal  for  a  livelihood,  but  he  prefers  to  earn  an  honest 
living  for  himself  and  family  by  such  work  as  comes  to  hand, 
even  at  the  risk  of  his  life.  He  is  more  often  than  not  a  hero. 
He  is  not  evil,  even  though  the  conditions  that  produce  him  are. 

It  is  a  sad  commentary  on  our  social  conditions  that  it  should 
require  one  crime  to  right  another.  Time  was  when  this  was 
inseparable  from  human  progress.  It  should  be  no  longer  neces- 
sary. The  world  has  progressed  in  other  directions ;  why  not 
here?  The  recent  strikes  in  the  coal-fields  illustrate  in  epitome 
the  status  of  labor  in  its  relations  to  capital.  Peaceable  men 
were  shot  down  at  their  own  doors,  or  beaten  or  shot  on  their 
way  to  work,  their  children  left  fatherless  and  their  wives  wid- 
owed. What  a  pitiful  tragedy!  Back  of  it  all  stands  the  con- 
scienceless greed  of  the  capitalist,  it  is  true,  but  is  this  an  apology 
for  murder  ? 


ANARCHY    IN    ITS    RELATIONS    TO   CRIME     283 

The  Constitution  of  the  United  States  guarantees  liberty  and 
the  pursuit  of  happiness  to  every  citizen.  It  guarantees  the 
right  to  labor  under  the  flag.  There  is  no  discrimination  in  it 
against  the  "  scab."  It  is  high  time  that  American  manhood 
asserted  itself.  Crimes  against  the  rights  of  one  man  are  crimes 
against  those  of  all.  Here,  again,  the  principle  that  one  man's 
rights  end  where  another's  begin  should  govern. 

The  intrinsic  moral  right  to  strike  must  be  conceded,  but 
there  are  times  when  even  a  peaceful  strike  means  such  hard- 
ships and  inconvenience,  even  suflFering,  to  the  public  at  large 
that  it  might  well  be  considered  a  crime. 

The  attitude  of  labor  towards  the  community  was  well  set 
forth  in  a  recent  newspaper  editorial  in  commenting  upon  a 
street-car  tie-up.  I  quote  it  in  extenso,  as  one  of  the  most 
forcible  presentations  of  the  subject  I  have  read.^* 

"  The  matter  at  issue  is  one  from  which  the  public  cannot  escape. 
It  is  well  that  the  public  in  its  own  best  interests  should  confront  the 
situation  honestly  and  bravely. 

"  The  citizens  of  Chicago  have  become  scandalously  tolerant  of  mob 
rule.  There  is  not  in  the  hearts  of  the  populace  a  true  and  wholesome 
affection  for  the  law — the  master  of  all.  If  certain  bullies  and  stone- 
throwers  deem  the  time  fit,  McCormick  may  run  his  factories,  the  C.  B. 
and  Q.  may  run  its  trains,  the  street-car  company  may  venture  forth  on 
the  thoroughfares.  If  the  bullies  have  scowled  on  these  proceedings, 
then  the  masses  of  citizens  grow  accustomed  to  a  reign  of  terror  for 
employers,  during  which  the  men  who  give  themselves  to  the  protection 
of  the  law  are  taught  that  there  is  something  higher  than  law.  Light- 
minded  writers,  in  defiance  of  human  knowledge,  have  spread  the  belief 
that  '  public  sentiment'  is  to  be  ascertained  and  the  law  to  be  left 
unread. 

"What  is  true  public  sentiment?  It  is  the  Constitution  and  the 
laws.  If  these  charters  of  our  liberties  were  not  the  outcome  of  all 
public  thought,  we  should  have  some  other  government.  It  is,  therefore, 
a  mere  frivolity  of  any  community  in  this  nation  to  abolish  the  laws,  to 
establish  an  opera  bouffe  or  Pickwickian  administration,  whereby  bands 
of  men,  in  nowise  elected,  often  incapable  of  equitable  action,  may  assay 
to  dominate  the  public  order.     The  law  of  sixty  million  people  should 


Chicago  Record-Herald. 


284  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

be  able  to  deal  with  two  thousand  disaffected  citizens,  or  with  the 
million  who  live  in  Cook  County.  Security  lies  in  supine  obedience  to  the 
mandates  of  the  written  law." 

The  tremendous  expense  and  property  destruction  incidental 
to  the  railroad  strike  of  1894  should  have  been  a  lesson  to  the 
American  people,  independently  of  the  loss  of  life  and  personal 
injury  aspect  of  the  affair. 

A  certain  strike  murder  trial  in  Chicago  is  well  illustrative 
of  the  criminal  tendencies  of  some  labor  agitators,  and  the 
criminality  developed  in  labor's  rank  and  file.  The  case,  in 
brief,  is  as  follows: 

November  24,  1900,  occurred  a  strike  of  wood-workers. 
Harry  Ferris,  a  non-union  foreman,  was  killed  while  going  to 
work  with  lunch-box  in  hand.  He  was  armed,  and  had  ex- 
pressed a  determination  to  kill  any  one  who  stopped  him  from 
work.  He  knew  that  non-union  men  had  been  "  slugged."  He 
had  employed  a  number  of  non-union  men,  three  of  whom  were 
with  him  when  he  was  shot.  Two  men  were  suspected  of  the 
killing.  Ferris  wounded  one  assailant,  but  not  dangerously. 
More  than  two  years  after  the  murder,  one  of  the  men  was 
brought  to  trial,  but  acquitted  for  reasons  clear  only  to  the  jury. 
The  testimony  showed  that  the  assailants  were  hired  by  union 
men  to  slug  Ferris.    He  resisting,  they  shot  him. 

The  Ferris  case  is  by  no  means  an  extreme  or  isolated  one, 
as  the  history  of  all  great  strikes  shows.  While  in  exceptional 
instances  the  police  make  things  interesting  for  riotous  strikers, 
the  fact  remains  that  they  usually  sympathize  with  them.  The 
labor  vote  demands  concessions,  and  the  intimation  from  head- 
quarters is  usually  pretty  plain  that  leniency  towards  the  strikers 
is  to  be  the  watchword.  Class  prejudice  has  doubtless  also  some- 
thing to  do  with  the  attitude  of  the  police.  In  the  days  of  recog- 
nized anarchy  in  Chicago  things  were  different.  The  police  did 
not  know  then  how  to  make  hair-splitting  differentiations  be- 
tween the  real  article  of  anarchist  and  turbulent,  perhaps  mur- 
derous, strikers.  Possibly  they  believe  that  the  real  article  was 
so  thoroughly  hanged  that  the  rioter  of  the  present  day  could  not 
possibly  be  so  classified. 


ANARCHY    IN    ITS    RELATIONS    TO   CRIME     285 

Whatever  the  explanation,  the  fact  remains  that  the  man  with 
the  union  badge  has  been  allowed  to  break  the  laws,  defy  au- 
thority, assault,  burn  and  otherwise  destroy  property,  impede 
the  mails,  and  demoralize  trade  with  comparative  impunity. 
The  strike  of  1894  in  Chicago  was  broken  by  a  little  company 
of  militia  belonging  to  the  Second  Illinois  Infantry  firing  on  a 
mob,  after  hundreds  of  deputy  sheriffs,  police,  and  regular 
soldiers  had  been  set  openly  at  defiance  for  weeks.  Be  it  re- 
marked that  the  troops  who  did  the  work  were  under  orders 
from  Governor  Altgeld,  who  had  been  termed  the  "  Anarchists' 
friend."  Does  any  one  really  believe  that  any  serious  attempt  to 
quell  the  disturbance  had  been  made  by  the  civil  authorities? 

The  alleged  interest  taken  in  the  wrongs  of  labor  by  municipal 
authorities  merely  voices  their  desire  for  the  votes  of  labor. 
Their  duty  is  to  sympathize  with  law-abiding  people,  not  with 
those  who  break  laws.  It  is  time  enough  to  inquire  into  labor's 
wrongs  when  labor  has  been  made  to  respect  and  obey  the  law. 

The  laboring  man  is  an  amusing  fellow  in  some  ways.  He 
has  within  his  grasp  the  balance  of  political  power  in  America. 
In  our  large  cities  he  could  control  the  offices  if  he  would.  He 
spends  enough  in  wasted  time,  band  hire,  and  beer  on  Labor 
Day  to  buy  the  State  Legislature.  He  is  blind  to  his  Machiavel- 
lian opportunities,  and  does  his  work  like  a  ruffian.  He  con- 
tents himself  with  strikes  and  slugging  scabs.  A  political  Moses 
will  one  day  rise  in  the  body  politic  and  lead  the  voting  children 
of  labor  out  of  the  Wilderness.  He  may  be  a  demagogue,  and  a 
leader  of  demagogues  and  ignorant,  undisciplined  minds.  If  so, 
Heaven  help  the  country,  until  another  "  readjustment"  has 
occurred. 

The  tyranny  of  trades  and  labor  unions  is  fast  becoming  a 
public  nuisance.  The  so-called  sympathetic  strike  is  usually  an 
unmitigated  outrage  on  both  the  men  who  are  called  out  through 
sympathy  and  their  employers.  How  much  longer  the  public 
will  tolerate  such  impositions  is  a  question.  It  has  come  to 
pass  that  the  employer  enacts  the  role  of  football,  even  when 
trades  unions  war  upon  each  other  and  have  no  grievance  against 
their  employers. 


286  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

The  relation  of  great  strikes  to  crime  and  vice  is  sufficiently 
plain.  Poverty,  enforced  idleness,  a  spirit  of  rebellion  against 
existing  conditions,  and  a  sense  of  injustice  bring  a  train  of  evils 
in  their  wake.  Murder,  arson,  robbery,  prostitution,  and  drunk- 
enness— all  of  these  evils  attend  and  follow  strikes  of  con- 
siderable duration  and  magnitude. 

One  of  the  most  vicious  results  of  the  arbitrary  position  of 
trades  unions  is  their  literal  and  dogmatic  prescription  of  the 
eight-hour  law.  This  tends  to  reduce  the  ambition  of  the  work- 
ingman  to  a  dead  level.  All  of  the  successful  men  of  earth,  all 
those  whose  heads  have  risen  above  the  common  head  altitude, 
have  achieved  their  pre-eminence  by  working  overtime.  They 
have  not  been  eight-,  nor  ten-,  nor  yet  twelve-hour  men.  The 
ambitious  cigar-maker,  who  wishes  to  one  day  establish  a  little 
business  of  his  own,  desires  to  work  Sundays,  holidays,  and  over- 
time at  piece-work.  The  union  will  not  permit  this.  Such 
interference  with  personal  rights  should  be  made  criminal. 

Certain  phases  of  socialism  are  very  alluring,  but  the  sooner 
the  "  dead  level,  born  equal,"  fallacy  is  exploded,  the  better. 
There  has  never  been,  since  the  world  began,  equality  of  man. 
There  is  not,  nor  will  there  ever  be,  equality  of  brains,  strength, 
ambition,  talent,  industry,  and  courage.  With  men's  oppor- 
tunities reduced  to  a  common  level,  there  would  be  no  progress. 
Human  nature  is  like  a  stubborn  mule,  that  goes  fast  enough 
when  a  prospective  meal  is  placed  in  front  of  him.  Man  must 
see  rewards,  or  he  will  not  go  onward  and  upward.  With  no 
great  rewards  to  stimulate  ambition,  the  race  would  speedily 
revert  to  savagery.  The  specific  gravity  of  morals,  unsupported 
by  ambition  and  the  spirit  of  emulation,  drags  man  downward. 
Equality  of  man  is  a  conception  of  childish  minds.  Inequality 
of  man  is  a  normal  condition.  It  is  the  insuperable  obstacle  that 
nature  has  placed  in  the  way  of  socialistic  extremists.  It  is  the 
primary  inequality  of  men  that  makes  for  the  rising  of  races. 

The  anarchy  of  capital,  the  upper  dog  in  the  industrial 
struggle,  is  more  pernicious  than  that  of  labor.  It  has  not  only 
its  own  sins  to  answer  for,  but  many  of  those  of  the  working- 
man.     If  trades  unions  are  sometimes  illogical,   unreasonably 


ANARCHY  IN   ITS  RELATIONS  TO  CRIME    287 

exacting,  and  turbulent,  the  trusts  and  monopolies  are  often 
avaricious,  merciless,  conscienceless,  and  absolutely  regardless 
of  the  rights  of  the  public  at  large.  Vanderbilt  pronounced  the 
apotheosis  of  capital  when  he  said,  "  The  public  be  damned." 
The  trust  is  frequently  a  Shylock,  after  his  pound  of  flesh,  albeit 
not  so  frank  as  he  was.  It  strangles  competition  and  raises 
prices,  whilst  hypocritically  promising  the  people  cheaper  wares 
because  of  a  concentration  of  capital  and  energy.  The  trust 
lobbyist,  doubly  armed  with  argumentative  sophistry  and  cor- 
ruption funds,  occasionally  buys  legislatures,  municipalities,  and 
even  governments.  Office-holders  and  legislators  have  at  times 
been  quoted  at  varying  prices,  almost  in  open  market.  The 
relative  prices  of  aldermen,  senators,  aye  even  Congressmen, 
have  been  a  standing  joke  for,  lo,  these  many  years.  Back 
of  all  this  venality  stand  trusts,  corporations,  and  individual 
capitalists,  with  schemes  to  promote  and  people  to  rob.  It 
will  be  noted  that  capital  is  even  responsible  for  many  political 
crimes. 

The  difference  between  governing  bodies  in  matters  of  venal 
legislation  is  largely  a  matter  of  price.  Corporations  and  trusts 
have  no  difficulty  in  stealing  the  money  of  the  people  when  they 
so  desire.  Franchises  are  often  secured  by  bribery  ;  for  these  the 
public  should  have  quid  pro  quo,  yet  they  receive  nothing.  Privi- 
leges, by  which  the  people  are  robbed  of  their  birthright,  are 
secured  by  fraudulent  legislation.  By  the  most  arrant  fraud, 
lying,  and  bribery,  some  trusts  and  corporations  get  unlawful 
rebates  on  taxes,  or  escape  taxation  altogether.  The  people 
groan,  yet  go  on  carrying  the  burdens  of  capital.  The  State, 
county,  and  municipality  must  have  the  sinews  of  war ;  govern- 
ment and  "  graft"  are  as  expensive  as  they  are  synonymous ; 
and  as  huge  enterprises  will  not  carry  their  own  share  of  the 
burden,  the  people  must  carry  double. 

The  most  insidious  and  deadly  of  the  many  crimes  perpe- 
trated by  corporations  is  the  manipulation  of  stocks.  The  public, 
as  usual,  foots  the  bills.  Stocks  are  watered  and  put  up  or  down 
at  the  will  of  certain  corporation  thieves,  who,  witli  exact  knowl- 
edge of  the  situation,  have  the  public  absolutely  at  their  nicrc\ . 


288  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

That  monopolies  and  trusts  are  a  menace  to  the  welfare  of 
the  country  has  long  been  appreciated  by  thoughtful  Americans. 
As  long  ago  as  1872,  President  Grant  said  to  the  committee  of 
oil  men  who  had  been  sent  to  Washington  to  be  present  at  the 
Congressional  investigation  of  the  oil  trust : 

"  Gentlemen,  I  have  noticed  the  progress  of  monopolies,  and 
have  long  been  convinced  that  the  national  government  will  have 
to  interfere  and  protect  the  people  against  them." 

Bribing  jurors  in  cases  involving  corporation  and  trust  in- 
terests is  so  frequent  nowadays  that  it  scarcely  excites  comment. 
The  recent  proved  bribing  of  a  petit  jury  by  a  Chicago  street 
railway  corporation  is  still  fresh  in  the  public  mind.  Subordi- 
nates and  underlings  were  made  the  scape-goats  by  the  law,  and 
the  corporation  simply  smiled  in  its  sleeve. 

Blacklisting  employees  and  driving  them  to  desperation  is 
one  of  the  features  of  corporation  management  that  accounts 
for  much  of  the  bitterness  of  labor  towards  capital.  No  punish- 
ment is  too  severe  for  him  who  tries  to  prevent  a  man  from 
earning  an  honest  livelihood,  thus  fostering  the  perpetration  of 
crime  in  sheer  desperation  and  resentment. 

The  attitude  of  corporations  in  the  matter  of  personal  in- 
juries is  illustrative  of  their  criminal  tendencies.  For  years  and 
years  the  railroads  have  maimed  and  killed  at  will.  Thousands 
of  men  and  women  have  lost  limb  or  life  in  accidents  which  have 
been,  in  the  main,  preventable.  For  many  years  the  operating- 
rooms  of  our  large  public  hospitals  have  daily  been  converted 
into  veritable  shambles  by  the  railroads.  That  railroad  corpora- 
tions are  callous  is  shown  by  the  strenuous  fight  they  made 
against  track  elevation  in  Chicago.  In  Illinois  the  hope  of  the 
corporation  has  sometimes  seemed  to  be  that  the  injured  person 
might  soon  die.  Lives  are  cheap,  according  to  State  law.  Lost 
limbs  and  injured  spines  come  high  before  juries.  Corporations 
have  been  known  to  employ  lawyers  to  coerce  or  cajole  injured 
persons  to  sign  away  their  rights  to  damages.  Should  the  case 
come  to  trial,  the  company's  medical  "  expert"  sometimes  mini- 
mizes the  injuries.  Other  hired  experts  have  been  known  to  do 
the  same.     Witnesses  are  often  bribed  to  leave  the  State,  and 


ANARCHY    IN    ITS    RELATIONS    TO   CRIME     289 

juries  tempted  to  do  "  business"  with  the  corporation.  Much 
injustice  to  injured  persons  has  been  done  through  the  medium 
of  "  surety"  companies. 

The  law  specifies  that  a  suit  for  damages  cannot  be  brought 
after  two  years  from  the  date  of  injury.  I  know  of  one  large 
corporation  which,  through  the  agency  of  the  company  doctor, 
cunningly  kept  a  severely  injured  man  in  hospital  until  it  was 
too  late  to  sue. 

That  the  business  of  some  corporation  lawyers  is  largely  to 
protect  the  anarchical  interests  of  their  employers  is  well  known. 
They  are  not  infrequently  called  upon : 

1.  To  show  where  and  how  the  law  can  be  broken,  when 
the  selfish  interests  of  the  corporation  demand  it. 

2.  To  help  the  corporation  in  avoiding  the  penalties  of  law- 
breaking. 

3.  To  corrupt  tax  officials. 

4.  To  aid  in  swindling  injured  employees  out  of  their  rights. 
In  regard  to  franchises,  it  is  time  that  the  people  came  into 

their  own.  The  granting  of  the  right  to  furnish  transportation, 
gas,  electric  light,  telephones,  the  telegraph,  or  any  other  of  the 
common  necessities  of  life,  to  individuals  for  private  gain,  with- 
out adequate  compensation  to  the  commonwealth,  is  a  gigantic 
swindle.  Possibly  it  was  once  a  necessary  evil,  but  it  is  now  no 
longer  so ;  possibly  it  was  once  not  an  evil,  but  conditions  have 
changed.  The  welfare  of  humanity  demands  a  change  in  the 
operation  of  the  conveniences  mentioned, — an  adaptation  to  the 
new  conditions. 

Child  labor,  underpaid  labor  of  all  kinds,  and  especially 
female  labor,  and  the  discharge  of  employees  when  old  age  puts 
an  end  to  their  usefulness,  without  provision  for  their  helpless 
future,  are  causes  of  crime  for  which  capital  is  largely  re- 
sponsible. Most  of  these  points  have  been  expatiated  on 
elsewhere. 

The  child-labor  problem  is  of  first  importance.  The  attitude 
of  corporations  upon  this  question  is  exemplified  by  the  New 
England  cotton  goods  manufacturers.  Many  of  them  have 
transferred  their  seat  of  operations  to  the  South,  ostensibly  to 

19 


290  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

be  near  the  cotton  supply,  but  really  to  enjoy  the  fruits  of  child 
labor.  Massachusetts  will  not  permit  its  employment ;  the 
Carolinas  will.  Your  Yankee  "  blue  nose"  is  thrifty ;  his  an- 
cestors built  the  slavers,  and  let  the  South  bear  the  odium  while 
they  got  the  money.  He  still  looks  to  the  South  for  speculative 
investment  in  human  life.  He  still  buys,  but  does  not  sell, 
slaves, — the  "  poor  white"  children.  The  Carolinas  are  sowing 
the  wind ;  they  would  better  remember  the  crop  garnered  from 
such  seed.  In  North  Carolina  fourteen  per  cent.,  and  in  South 
Carolina  over  ten  per  cent.,  of  the  wage-workers  are  under  fif- 
teen years  of  age.  And  the  proportion  is  rapidly  increasing  all 
over  the  country,  but  especially  in  the  South. 

It  has  not  been  the  employment  of  Southern  white  child 
labor  alone  that  has  stigmatized  the  Eastern  cotton  manufac- 
turers as  heartless  in  their  business  enterprises.  The  mill  oper- 
atives in  New  England  have,  in  hundreds  of  instances,  been  re- 
duced to  penury  and  want  by  the  removal  of  the  mill  interests 
to  the  South.  When  the  mills  of  a  certain  Eastern  town  were 
shut  down  a  few  weeks  since,  sixteen  thousand  dollars  per  month 
in  wages  were  cut  off.  The  result  may  be  imagined.  Many  of 
the  mill  operatives  had  been  employed  in  that  particular  plant  all 
their  lives,  and  the  loss  of  their  positions  could  only  be  disastrous. 
The  small  store-keepers,  who  depended  upon  the  mill  operatives 
for  a  livelihood,  of  course  went  to  the  wall.  The  ranks  of  crimi- 
nals and  prostitutes  must  necessarily  be  enlarged  by  such  indus- 
trial cataclysms.  The  closing  of  the  mills  in  question  was  the 
punishment  of  the  State  by  capital  for  its  humanity  in  enacting 
and  enforcing  child-labor  laws.  The  manufacturers  left  for  fields 
where  white  slaves  were  cheap  and  profit  percentages  higher. 

America  experienced  in  the  Pennsylvania  coal  strike  a  severe 
object-lesson  in  the  evils  of  the  struggle  between  capital  and 
labor.  As  usual,  the  public  bore  the  brunt  of  the  disasters. 
Whether  the  coal  barons  or  the  miners  were  primarily  at  fault, 
the  facts  remain  that  people  suffered  with  cold  because  of  the 
strike,  and  the  coal  barons  eagerly  seized  the  opportunity  to  rob 
the  people  by  raising  the  price  of  coal  to  almost  the  prohibitive 
point. 


ANARCHY    IN    ITS    RELATIONS    TO   CRIME     291 

The  power  of  trusts  to  exclude  competition,  send  prices 
soaring  skyward,  and  limit  the  production  of  the  necessaries  of 
life,  is  a  menace  to  the  body  social  that  will  one  day  disrupt  it, 
if  conditions  do  not  change.  That  crime  has  been  directly 
caused  by  the  coal  famine  is  indisputable.  At  least  one  murder 
attributable  to  it  occurred  in  Chicago. 

The  history  of  some  great  corporations  typifies  the  anarchy 
of  capital.  Oppressing  and  strangling  competition,  buying  legis- 
lation, subsidizing  railroads  into  unjust  rate  discrimination,  piling 
up  dishonest  millions, — such  is  the  record. 

THE   ANARCHY   OF    LAW 

The  machinery  of  law  is  tainted  from  top  to  bottom  with 
venality,  corruption,  and  interested  unfairness.  The  letter  and 
spirit  of  the  law  are  tantamount  to  justice.  The  English  com- 
mon law  is  not  complicated,  nor  is  it  so  abstruse  that  it  cannot 
be  comprehended.  Its  literal  interpretation  and  application  to 
human  affairs  would  approximately  meet  the  ends  of  justice, 
whether  or  not  in  the  case  of  criminal  law  the  penalties  pre- 
scribed under  its  jurisdiction  were  logical  and  altruistic.  The 
comparatively  simple  and  lucid  fundamental  premises  of  law 
have  been  modified,  distorted,  perverted,  and  buried  in  verbiage 
by  various  courts  and  legislators,  until  its  principles  are  often 
most  effectually  concealed  from  human  ken.  In  America,  espe- 
cially, the  power  of  each  State  to  make  laws  for  itself  has  re- 
sulted in  the  greatest  confusion.  As  the  statutes  are  usually 
framed  and  enacted  by  ignorant  politicians,  not  by  men  of  legal 
knowledge,  the  laws  of  the  various  States  are  badly  "  scrambled." 
With  venality  added  to  the  primary  incapacity,  often  amounting 
to  imbecility,  of  our  makers  and  dispensers  of  law,  the  result 
complex  is  truly  amazing. 

The  fallibility  and  occasional  corruptibility  of  the  bench  adds 
precedents  to  the  jumble  of  law,  which  make  confusion  worse 
confounded.  In  some  instances  the  rulings  of  a  court  that  have 
established  a  precedent  would  not  be  similarly  interpreted  by  any 
two  intelligent  lawyers  who  could  be  selected.  I  recently  had 
occasion  to  refer  an  obscure  decision  to  two  intelligent  legal 


292  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

friends  for  interpretation.  After  profound  study  they  gave  it  up 
in  despair. 

As  an  illustration  of  the  relation  of  the  bench  to  politics,  a 
recent  occurrence  in  Chicago  is  without  a  parallel.  A  well- 
known  and  brilliant  judge  enjoined  the  election  commissioners 
from  recounting  the  ballots  in  a  contested  election,  and  on  their 
disobeying  committed  them  for  contempt  of  court.  The  Supreme 
Court,  in  granting  writs  of  habeas  corpus  to  the  commissioners, 
ruled  that  the  aforesaid  judge  had  no  jurisdiction  in  the  matter 
of  the  ballots,  a  ruling  which  probably  did  not  surprise  him,  for 
he  is  learned  in  the  law. 

Even  a  superficial  study  of  the  machinery  of  law  will  enable 
one  to  understand  that  the  opportunities  of  subverting  the  laws 
to  personal  and  private  ends  are  manifold.  Human  nature  being 
as  it  is,  it  is  not  surprising  that  such  subversion  often  occurs. 
The  profession  of  law  is  not  to  be  held  accountable  for  this, 
whatever  may  be  said  of  the  culpability  of  certain  individual 
lawyers. 

The  venality  of  the  occasional  jury  is  a  marked  example  of 
the  anarchy  of  law  machinery,  of  which  the  jury  system  is  so 
essential  a  part.  Associated  with  the  corruption  of  the  Jury  is 
the  venality  of  the  lawyer  who  engineers  a  deal  with  the  jurors. 
The  respectable  lawyer  is,  of  course,  above  this ;  it  is  a  distinct 
violation  of  professional  ethics ;  still  it  is  done  every  day,  often 
by  lawyers  who  are  deemed  leaders  in  their  profession.  When 
a  very  eminent  lawyer  is  quoted  as  saying,  "  I  never  tried  but 
one  case  on  the  square,  my  first,  and  lost  that,"  his  known 
subsequent  success  is  not  a  matter  to  be  proud  of.  That  jury- 
bribing  has  been  done  in  Chicago  is  well  known.  There  are  so 
many  familiar  instances  that  it  would  be  supererogation  to  quote 
individual  cases. 

The  unjust  dispensation  of  law  in  our  justice  courts,  which 
are  presided  over,  as  a  rule,  by  men  who  are  not  educated  in 
law,  constitutes  the  primary  department  of  legal  anarchy.  As  is 
well  known,  a  suit  in  a  justice  shop  is  usually  won  by  the  lawyer 
who  brings  it,  if  his  business  or  prospective  business  is  large 
enough  to  warrant  the  justice  in  straining  a  point.    In  the  matter 


ANARCHY    IN    ITS    RELATIONS    TO   CRIME     293 

of  levies,  the  justice  shop  frequently  has  some  peculiar  customs. 
A  Chicago  constable  recently  levied  on  the  property  of  a  woman 
whom  he  assaulted  with  a  revolver,  while  his  assistant,  a  burly 
negro,  threw  a  number  of  valuable  rugs  out  of  the  window. 

Illegal  arrests  and  commitments  are  too  numerous  to  men- 
tion. Unwarranted  assaults  by  officers  while  making  arrests 
are  not  general,  it  is  true,  but  they  occur  only  too  often.  I  recall 
the  arrest  of  two  peaceable  laboring  men  by  a  notorious  police 
captain,  a  favorite  of  the  then  dominant  political  party,  in  which 
the  brutal  officer  and  his  partner  beat  the  two  inoffensive  citizens 
most  horribly.  The  assailants  received  merely  nominal  pun- 
ishment. 

The  system  of  criminal  law,  so  far  as  trials  are  concerned, 
would  seem  farcical  to  the  unprejudiced  observer,  to  say  nothing 
of  its  frequent  anarchical  trend.  The  criminal  lawyer  is  a  queer 
institution.  That  legal  specialists  should  exist  whose  business 
it  is  to  defeat  the  ends  of  justice,  on  the  one  hand,  or  to  prevent 
the  perpetration  of  injustice  to  the  innocent  by  the  court,  on  the 
other,  is  a  travesty.  Tt  is  a  reflection  on  social  intelligence. 
Quite  as  anomalous  a  product  of  our  criminal  law  system  is  the 
public  prosecutor,  whose  business  it  is  to  prosecute,  and  whose 
personal  interest  it  is  to  convict  accused  persons.  Under  pre- 
vailing conditions,  we  often  find  the  ambitious  public  prosecutor 
straining  every  nerve  to  convict  and  hang  a  man  accused  of 
murder,  no  matter  how  flimsy  the  evidence,  and  the  criminal 
lawyer,  with  equal  ambition,  striving  to  acquit  a  man  whom 
everybody  knows  to  be  guilty.  There  is  no  technicality  too 
trifling  to  defeat  the  ends  of  justice,  on  the  one  hand,  nor  to 
send  a  prisoner  to  the  gallows  or  prison,  on  the  other.  Anything 
to  acquit — anything  to  convict.  Modification  or  increase  of 
vigor  of  prosecution  and  defence  largely  depend  upon  "  pull"  or 
the  pocket-book. 

The  prosecutor  and  the  criminal  lawyer  having  done  their 
best,  respectively,  to  hang  and  to  acquit,  the  case  is  submitted  to 
a  jury  of  men  selected,  as  a  rule,  because  of  their  incompetenc\ 
and  ignorance  of  human  aflfairs.  Most  of  them  could  not  weigh 
flour  intelligently,  yet  they  are  expected  to  weigh  evidence. — 


294  THE    DISEASES   OF    SOCIETY 

something  requiring  a  keen  memory,  great  mental  acumen,  and 
a  well-developed  faculty  of  analysis.  While  they  are  struggling 
with  the  evidence  and  the  conflicting  emotions  excited  in  their 
bosoms  by  the  oratory  of  the  opposing  lawyers,  the  life  or  liberty 
of  a  human  being  hangs  in  the  balance.  Add  to  the  ignorance 
and  incapacity  of  the  jury  the  psychic  eflfect  of  the  closing  argu- 
ments, the  fallibility  and  bias  of  judges  in  charging  the  jury,  and 
the  personal  bias  and  possible  venality  of  the  jury  itself,  and  the 
balance  is  a  hazardous  one  in  which  to  weigh  human  life  and 
liberty.  In  a  recent  trial,  a  man  accused  of  an  attempt  to  black- 
mail a  woman  was  acquitted  apparently  because  of  the  eloquence 
of  the  gallant  lawyer  for  the  defence  in  endeavoring  to  show 
that  the  complainant  was  herself  immoral.  And  the  brilliant 
attorney  was  allowed  to  abuse  the  poor  woman  so  thoroughly 
that  the  result  upon  the  minds  of  the  mighty  twelve  was  to 
have  been  expected. 

The  most  important  part  of  the  system  of  criminal  law  is  the 
least  guarded.  The  police  justice  court  is  for  many  the  gateway 
to  a  life  of  crime,  from  which  there  is  no  escape.  An  intelligent 
and  humane  man  on  the  bench  can  do  much  to  turn  back  into 
decency  wayward  youths,  or  even  adults,  accused  of  petty  crimes. 
Commitments  are  often  made  where  a  little  fatherly  advice  or  a 
considerate  reprimand  would  serve  society  better.  Sentencing 
petty  criminals  is  the  most  serious  phase  of  the  legal  aspect  of 
the  crime  question.  Once  the  culprit  has  passed  the  gate  to  the 
land  of  penalties  and  joined  the  great  army  of  criminals,  he  is 
often  irretrievably  lost.  There  is  usually  little  hope  for  him  in 
our  present  system  of  punishment  and  reformation.  Chicago 
has  done  much  for  punishment  and  reformation,  and  much  to 
redeem  young  offenders,  but,  despite  the  influence  of  the  Juvenile 
Court,  much  avoidable  confirmation  of  criminal  tendencies  is 
still  going  on.  Where  the  justice  is  not  both  intelligent  and 
humane,  niceties  of  discrimination  are  likely  to  be  honored  more 
in  the  breach  than  in  the  observance. 

Much  injustice  has  been  perpetrated  in  courts  of  law  through 
circumstantial  evidence  and  fallacious  identification.  Often- 
times the  jury  stultifies  itself  by  hedging  in  the  matter  of  recom- 


ANARCHY    IN    ITS   RELATIONS    TO   CRIME     295 

mendation  of  sentence.  It  convicts  on  circumstantial  evidence, 
but,  not  being  quite  sure  of  its  own  wisdom,  finds  a  verdict  or 
suggests  a  sentence  which,  in  itself,  proves  that  it  was  not  sure 
of  the  guilt  of  the  condemned.  In  the  matter  of  identification, 
especially,  criminal  jurisprudence  is  often  at  fault.  Witnesses 
will  testify  to  peculiarities  of  dress,  manner,  and  features,  the 
recollection  of  which  would  demand  a  high  degree  of  cultivation 
of  the  faculty  of  observation.  I  happened  to  be  discussing  this 
question  with  several  physicians — supposed  to  be  keen  observers 
— upon  a  crowded  street  on  one  occasion,  and  casually  called 
attention  to  a  man  and  woman  who  were  passing  whose  attire 
was  peculiar.  After  the  couple  had  disappeared,  I  challenged 
my  friends  to  describe  the  persons  designated,  and  not  one  of 
them  was  able  to  give  a  description  that  would  have  been  worth 
the  breath  expended  in  giving  it,  were  it  to  be  given  to  a  jury. 
I  have  made  similar  tests  on  numerous  occasions  with  like 
results.  And  yet  persons  are  often  convicted  of  crime  on  the 
identification  furnished  by  witnesses  of  mediocre  intelligence. 
The  testimony  of  a  witness  who  was  laboring  under  the  stress 
of  fear  or  excitement  at  the  time  of  the  commission  of  an  act 
of  violence  is,  of  necessity,  often  worthless,  as  every  student  of 
psychology  should  know. 

THE   THERAPEUTICS   OF   ANARCHY 

It  is  not  the  function  of  a  work  of  this  kind  to  suggest  in 
detail  remedies  for  the  various  conditions  herein  outlined  as 
anarchical  causes  of  vice  and  crime.  In  most  of  the  cited  in- 
stances the  remedy  suggests  itself.  To  cover  the  prevention  and 
cure  of  the  various  evils  treated  of  in  this  chapter  would  alone 
require  a  large  volume.  My  consideration  of  the  subject  will, 
therefore,  be  largely  general  in  character. 

Social  evolution  is  responsible  for  all  of  the  conditions  that 
tend  to  the  improvement  of  the  race.  Evolution  has  by  no  means 
been  perfect  in  results,  for  society  is  still  crude  in  many  respects. 
It  will,  however,  go  on  operating  as  the  years  roll  by,  and  many 
defects  in  the  workings  of  our  social  system  will  be  corrected 
eventually.     Man  will  adjust  his  conduct  more  and  more  closely 


296  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

to  the  principles  of  true  altruism.  He  will  still  be  selfish,  it  is 
true,  but  he  will  have  discovered  that  his  individual  interests  are 
best  conserved  by  protecting  the  interests  of  society  as  a  whole. 
The  anarchy  of  governments  will  one  day  yield  to  the  principle 
of  common  law.  Governments  will  then  have  no  rights  that  are 
not  a  composite  of  individual  rights.  The  individual  rights  of 
man  will  be  the  foundation  upon  which  governments  rest.  The 
strong  hand  of  the  law  will  then  overtake  the  wholesale  cut- 
throat just  as  it  now  does  the  individual  murderer.  Human 
beings  are  bound  to  rebel,  sooner  or  later,  against  any  conduct 
of  government  entailing  a  risk  of  life  and  limb  to  the  individual, 
and  of  poverty  and  loss  of  protection  to  those  dependent  upon 
him.  Expenditures  on  account  of  war  are  growing  heavier  from 
year  to  year ;  the  cost  of  armies,  munitions  of  war.  and  floating 
fortresses  is  growing  greater.  The  pension  system  of  all  countries 
in  which  it  exists,  and  especially  in  America,  is  a  burden  greater 
than  the  people  should  be  called  upon  to  bear.  It  permits  of  the 
robbery  of  the  government  by  pension  sharks  and  their  clients. 
To  the  deserving  soldier  we  do  not  grudge  the  modest  stipend 
that  perhaps  stands  between  him  and  abject  poverty,  but  he  is 
none  the  less  a  burden  to  society. 

Nearly  all  of  the  anarchical  conditions  that  lead  to  vice  and 
crime  would  cease  to  exist  if  a  general  respect  for  the  rights  of 
man  and  a  general  conformity  to  the  laws  of  the  particular 
social  system  in  which  the  individual  is  placed  were  once  estab- 
lished. Whenever  all  men  understand  that  conformity  to  exist- 
ing laws,  framed  for  the  protection  of  society  at  large,  is  the  best 
protection  for  their  own  personal  rights,  anarchy  will  become  an 
historic  curiosity.  The  campaign  in  favor  of  this  intelligent 
understanding  must  of  necessity  be  educational. 

The  establishment  of  a  proper  equilibrium  between  labor  and 
capital  will  be  absolutely  necessary  before  anarchy  will  cease  to 
be  an  element  in  our  social  system.  Labor  is  necessary,  and  so 
is  capital,  for,  as  already  remarked,  the  existence  of  one  without 
the  other  is  impossible  under  present  social  conditions.  They 
are  inseparable,  if  social  advancement  is  aimed  at.  The  honest 
development  of  various  industries  is  normal,  and  a  developme;  t 


ANARCHY    IN    ITS    RELATIONS    TO   CRIME     297 

that  will  permit  of  fair  competition  and  a  legitimate  and  moderate 
percentage  of  profit  upon  money  actually  invested  is  absolutely 
necessary  to  social  progress. 

This  depends,  of  necessity,  upon  the  co-operation  of  capital 
and  labor,  a  co-operation  that  shall  recognize  the  rights  of  each, 
and  shall  embrace  profit-sharing  in  some  form.  The  experiment 
of  co-operation  upon  a  fair  profit-sharing  basis  has  been  tried, 
and  proved  successful.  Nothing  but  the  great  greed  of  monopo- 
lies and  trusts,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  short-sightedness  of 
individual  capitaUsts,  on  the  other,  stands  in  the  way  of  its 
general  adoption. 

We  are  just  now  in  the  midst  of  a  Presidential  and  Con- 
gressional spasm  of  reform  in  the  way  of  antitrust  legislation. 
How  much  of  this  is  a  conscientious  desire  for  reform,  and  how 
much  political  buncombe,  it  is  difficult  to  say.  The  Democratic 
party  is  without  an  issue.  The  trusts  were  its  legitimate  prey. 
With  antitrust  legislation  forestalled  by  the  Republicans,  the 
Democrats'  occupation  will  be  gone  for  the  time  being.  What- 
ever his  motive,  Roosevelt's  policy  of  conciliating  that  political 
giant  of  the  future.  Labor,  is  clever  and  far-seeing. 

That  fair  and  impartial  arbitration  by  financially  disinter- 
ested parties  is  the  most  efTective  remedy  for  industrial  dissen- 
sions is  destined  to  become  a  fixed  principle  in  all  civilized 
communities. 

So  far  as  the  government  of  States  and  municipalities  is 
concerned,  there  is  very  little  immediate  prospect  of  improve- 
ment. The  purification  of  the  ballot  is  thus  far  but  an  optimistic 
dream.  The  independent  voter  as  against  parties  and  machines 
has  not  yet  cut  much  of  a  figure  in  politics,  although  in  his 
hands  He  the  remedies  for  political  disease.  The  strict  applica- 
tion of  civil  service  rules  will  neutralize,  to  a  certain  extent,  the 
viciousness  of  our  political  system. 

The  keynote  of  reform  is  the  establishment  of  all  forms  of 
government  upon  sound  and  economic  business  principles.  Dis- 
honest and  corrupt  politics  and  venal  administration  of  public 
offices  will  prevail  so  long  as  the  public  expects  its  business  to 
be  conducted  without  adequate  compensation.     The  conditions 


298  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

necessary  to  purity  and  soundness  in  politics,  from  Congressman 
down  to  alderman,  are  an  intelligent  reasoning  faculty,  a  broad 
education,  a  practical  business  training,  and  wealth  beyond  the 
necessity  or  temptation  of  crookedness, — rather  difficult  condi- 
tions to  fulfil.  That  the  profession  of  politics  in  America  does 
not  demand  such  conditions  the  veriest  tyro  knows.  Wealth  is 
deferred  to  only  as  a  means  to  an  end.  With  it  votes  must  be 
bought  and  campaign  expenses  paid.  It  is  never  considered  as 
protective  of  the  public  by  putting  the  candidate  beyond  the 
necessity  of  dishonesty.  The  other  qualifications  necessary  to 
purity  in  politics  and  legislation  not  being  possessed  by  the  suc- 
cessful moneyed  candidate,  he  proceeds  to  recoup  his  campaign 
expenses  at  the  first  opportunity,  and  he  adds  heavy  interest  in 
perpetuity.  The  political  office-seeker  who  has  no  money  knows 
that  if  he  is  successful  there  are  "  good  things"  in  store  for  him. 
The  consequence  is  that  honest  legislation  is  almost  impossible. 

When  the  public  gets  value  received  in  legislation  or  public 
administration,  it  is  usually  because  the  interests  of  the  public 
and  those  of  the  legislators  are,  for  the  nonce,  identical.  Bills  of 
importance  must  usually  be  "  kissed  troo"  the  legislature,  as  a 
prominent  Chicago  politician,  erstwhile  a  member  of  the  State 
Senate,  once  expressed  it  to  me.  One  thing  is  certain, — viz.,  if 
the  public  desires  a  business-like  and  honest  administration  of  its 
affairs,  it  must  either  pay  value  received  and  select  its  legislators 
and  office-holders  upon  business  principles,  or  find  candidates 
among  people  of  wealth  and  leisure  who  are  otherwise  well  quali- 
fied. If  our  public  offices  are  really  positions  of  trust  and  honor, 
they  should  be  distributed  among  men  who  are  worthy  of  the  one 
and  deserving  of  the  other.  With  politics  conducted  as  it  is,  and 
at  the  present  rate  of  compensation,  honest  office-holding  is  well- 
nigh  impracticable. 

A  healthful  public  opinion  would  serve  to  correct  many  of 
the  anarchistic  elements  of  politics,  government,  labor,  capital, 
and  law.  Society  discriminates  between  the  poor  devil  who  steals 
to  live  and  the  capitalistic  anarchist  who  lives  to  steal, — chiefly 
because  he  likes  the  game, — in  favor  of  the  latter.  The  indi- 
vidual who  has  cajoled,  bribed,  or  evaded  the  law, and  grown  rich 


ANARCHY   IN    ITS    RELATIONS    TO   CRIME     299 

through  such  evasion,  is  courted  and  petted  by  society,  especially 
if  he  is  willing  to  spend  his  money  freely  and  lives  ostentatiously. 
The  reverse  is  true  of  society's  treatment  of  the  petty  pilferer. 
He  is  even  denied  a  chance  to  earn  an  honest  living,  and  in  many 
instances  forced  back  into  a  criminal  life  when  he  has  endeavored 
to  the  best  of  his  ability  to  escape  from  it.  With  criminal  records 
and  no  social  position,  such  individuals  are  in  a  deplorable  plight. 

Much  can  be  done  to  improve  upon  present  conditions  by 
the  general  discountenancing  of  riotous  and  turbulent  demon- 
strations on  the  part  of  people  who  have  real  or  imaginary  griev- 
ances to  adjust.  Society  has  been  demoralized  to  a  great  extent 
by  the  conduct  of  strikers  and  rioters  of  various  kinds.  The 
general  public  has  not  only  tolerated  these  hoodlums,  but  has 
aided,  abetted,  and  applauded  them  on  all  occasions.  The  sooner 
trades  unions  discover,  through  impartial  enforcement  of  the 
law,  that  they  have  no  rights  that  the  individual  citizen  is  not 
permitted  to  enjoy,  the  better  for  all  concerned. 

One  of  the  main  features  of  the  education  of  the  public  in 
the  cause  of  law  and  order  should  be  the  establishment  of  the 
principle  that  the  law  is  not  to  be  trifled  with.  Mobs  can  never 
be  controlled  by  rational  argument  nor  by  blank  cartridges.  A 
mob  is  an  unreasoning  brutish  entity  upon  which  moral  means 
are  lost,  and,  what  is  worse,  words  and  blank  cartridges  are  taken 
as  a  sign  of  weakness  on  the  part  of  the  authorities.  When  the 
present  vacillation  in  the  management  of  mobs  ceases,  and  public 
officials  do  their  duty,  mob  rule  will  cease,  not  before.  Better  a 
few  funerals  of  rioters,  than  a  reign  of  barbarism.  Society  has 
the  right  of  self-defence.  It  assumes  the  right  of  capital  punish- 
ment, which  is  illogical  and  ineffective, — why  not  the  right  to  sup- 
press a  mob  by  measures  both  logical  and  effective  ?  In  the  case 
of  men  who  openly  advocate  destructivism  or  personal  injury, 
whether  they  assume  the  garb  of  anarchy  or  trades-unionism, 
there  is  but  one  remedy,  the  legal  "  muzzle."  A  point  should  be 
strained,  if  necessary,  and  the  muzzle  applied  early.  The  ad- 
vocacy of  murder  and  property  destruction,  and  the  right  of  free 
speech  are  not  synonymous,  and  the  sooner  this  is  understood  tlie 
better.     The  destructivist  is  a  dangerous  microbe  and  must  be 


300  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

made  innocuous.  If  other  means  be  ineffective,  he  should  be 
permanently  "  walled  off." 

Honest  legislation  against  trusts  and  monopolies  will  always 
be  difficult  to  secure.  The  power  to  do  so  lies  in  Labor's  own 
hands.  If  one-half  the  energy,  time,  and  money  expended  in 
strikes,  riots,  and  labor  demonstrations  were  devoted  to  practical 
politics,  the  workingman  would  soon  have  things  all  his  own 
way.  The  danger  would  be,  however,  that  the  men  sent  to  our 
legislative  bodies  as  representatives  of  labor  would,  at  least  at 
first,  be  either  ignoramuses  or  demagogues.  Should  they  be 
venal,  and,  therefore,  purchasable,  conditions  would  be  worse 
than  before.  The  same  official  rapacity  would  exist  as  at  the 
present  day,  but  without  its  present  degree  of  intelligence,  inferior 
though  it  is.  The  general  adoption  of  the  referendum  will  do 
much  to  improve  our  statutory  laws. 

A  vital  point  in  the  prevention  of  crime  is  the  intelligent 
selection  of  police  officials,  and  especially  police  justices.  The 
appointment  of  these  latter  should  be  taken  out  of  the  domain  of 
politics  altogether.  It  would  be  better  to  have  the  selections 
made  by  the  bench  and  the  bar.  Men  should  be  selected  who  are 
known  to  have  a  knowledge  of  law,  and,  as  already  suggested,  an 
elementary  knowledge,  at  least,  of  the  principles  of  sociology, 
and  particularly  criminal  sociology. 

A  member  of  the  Chicago  bar,  speaking  of  police  govern- 
ment, said: 


"  The  only  remedy  for  police  corruption  that  can  come  from  the 
citizens  is  to  take  the  police  force  out  of  politics  by  law.  The  New 
York  Municipal  Police  law  is  an  admirable  law.  It  places  the  matter 
of  employment  and  discharge  under  the  control  of  a  board  of  police 
commissioners,  equally  divided  as  to  politics,  so  as  to  operate  as  a  check 
upon  each  other.  Under  that  law,  no  policeman  may  be  discharged 
without  a  trial  on  specified  charges  in  writing,  and  judgment  against  him 
by  a  majority  of  the  board,  and  from  this  judgment  the  officer  has  the 
right  of  appeal  to  the  courts  of  record.  Such  a  law  makes  an  officer 
independent  of  politicians  and  gives  him  a  position  from  which  he 
cannot  be  ousted  during  good  behavior  and  while  he  remains  competent. 
Under  that  law,  the  inducements  to  perform  faithful  service  are  great. 
Of  course,  under  any  system  there  is  some  temptation  for  the  officer  to 


ANARCHY    IN    ITS    RELATIONS    TO    CRIME     301 

commit  perjury,  but  the  temptation  will  be  least  under  a  system  where 
merit  is  certain  to  be  rewarded  and  the  officer  is  independent  of  the 
politician  and  the  man  of  influence." 

Legislation  against,  and  for  the  regulation  of,  child  labor 
should  be  arbitrary  and  definite  in  its  tone.  Evasion  of  the  law 
should  be  visited  by  the  severest  penalties.  To  be  effective,  the 
laws  of  the  various  States  should  be  made  uniform. 

Much  can  be  done  to  limit  the  evils  of  the  trusts,  large  cor- 
porations, and  capitalistic  classes  in  general,  by  so  adjusting  tax- 
ation as  to  compel  them  to  bear  their  share  of  society's  burdens, 
and  punishing  them  severely  for  tax  evasions.  At  present,  the 
man  of  moderate  means  bears  most  of  the  burden.  A  regulation 
of  the  tariff  so  as  to  prevent  oppression  by  protected  interests 
is  essential. 

Many  common  necessities  of  life  should  be  under  State,  gov- 
ernmental, or  municipal  control.  Gas,  electric  lighting,  street  and 
steam  railways,  the  telephone,  and  the  telegraph  should  belong 
to  the  public.  The  coal  trust  should  be  strangled,  and  the  coal- 
fields placed  under  governmental  control.  The  same  is  true  of 
the  vast  petroleum  interests.  Natural  products  should  not  be 
cornered  by  anybody,  or,  at  least,  their  nianagement  and  price 
should  be  under  governmental  supervision. 

What  I  have  elsewhere  said  of  restriction  and  regulation  of 
immigration  bears  with  especial  force  upon  the  question  of  an- 
archy. No  immigrant  should  be  allowed  to  remain  in  this  coun- 
try unless  his  intelligence  is  shown  by  some  educational  test  to 
be  sufficient  to  enable  him  to  comprehend  our  social  conditions, 
and  especially  the  simpler  principles  of  our  laws.  It  is  suicidal  to 
attempt  to  educate  our  youth  to  an  appreciative  and  intelligent 
understanding  of  our  laws,  refusing  to  allow  them  to  vote  until 
twenty-one  years  of  age,  while  at  the  same  time  importing  Old 
World  ignorant  refuse  with  revolutionary  ideas,  and  allowing  it 
a  voice  in  our  politics  and  government  five  years  later.  This 
probationary  period  is  scant  enough  for  the  best  of  immigrants, 
— who  should  be  taught  that  the  elective  franchise  is  not  to  lie 
had  for  the  asking, — while  for  the  worst  it  is  absurd. 

So  far  as  the  imported  variety  of  anarchy  is  immediately 


302  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

concerned,  the  only  safeguard  is  an  intelligent  inspection  and 
regulation  of  immigrants  and  immigration,  that  shall  comprise  a 
knowledge,  so  far  as  it  is  possible  to  obtain  it,  of  the  record  of 
the  individual  in  the  country  from  which  he  comes,  and  a  period 
of  espionage  after  his  arrival  in  America.  As  already  indicated, 
I  believe  that  the  danger  and  importance  of  this  element  of  an- 
archy in  America  has  been  greatly  exaggerated.  Still,  so  long 
as  the  minds  of  our  people  are  disquieted  by  the  presence  in  our 
midst  of  foreign-born  anarchistic  radicals,  the  wisest  course  is 
to  keep  them  out  of  the  country  altogether.  The  least  that  can 
be  said  of  them  is  that  they  form  re-enforcement  for  the  Ameri- 
can-bred variety  of  anarchist,  whose  name  is  Legion. 

In  criminal  trials  there  should  be  no  question  of  prosecution 
or  defence.  The  business  of  the  criminal  court  should  be  to  sift 
the  evidence  and  get  at  the  truth,  regardless  of  fear  or  favor. 
A  council  of  judges,  selected  because  of  known  probity  and 
special  fitness  by  virtue  of  ripeness  of  experience  and  profound 
legal  knowledge,  should  replace  the  present  jury  system.  This 
council  should  be  free  from  political  taint,  and  selected  by  the 
bar.  The  appointment  as  councillor  should  be  for  a  long  period, 
and  the  position  well  compensated.  Conjoin  with  such  a  council 
a  Board  of  Pardons,  composed  of  intelligent,  broad-minded  men, 
with  a  knowledge  of  criminal  sociology,  and  absolutely  non- 
partisan and  non-political  in  spirit,  and  the  interests  of  both 
society  and  the  criminal  would  be  protected. 

That  the  foregoing  plan  is  practical,  so  far  as  the  judges  are 
concerned,  is  proved  by  the  personnel  and  modus  operandi  of  the 
Appellate,  Superior,  and  Supreme  Courts.  There  is  no  cogent 
reason  why  a  similar  organization  of  the  lower  courts  should 
not  exist.  The  jury  system  is  venerable  and  intrinsically  absurd. 
Nothing  better  can  be  said  of  it. 

The  discouragement  of  anarchy  demands  an  impartial  ad- 
ministration of  the  law.  Social  fanatic,  capitalist,  and  turbulent 
laborite  alike  should  be  taught  that  the  law  recognizes  no 
favorites  among  criminals.  Rich  and  poor  malefactors  alike 
should  be  made  to  feel  that  law  is  for  the  defence  of  society 
against  its  integers,  without  fear  or  favor. 


CHAPTER   VII 

SEXUAL   VICE   AND    CRIME 

Prostitution 

General  Considerations. — Prostitution  is  one  of  the  most 
important  and  vital  problems  with  which  society  has  to  deal. 
The  subject  is  tabooed  in  polite  circles,  and  dealt  with  by  society 
somewhat  after  the  fashion  of  the  ostrich,  seeking  safety  by 
burying  his  head  in  the  sand.  When  the  social  evil  is  mentioned, 
society  either  stops  its  ears  and  covers  its  face  with  its  hands, — 
to  conceal  blushes  not  always  innocent, — or  runs  away  from  the 
issue  altogether.  He  who  undertakes  to  "  grasp  the  bull  by  the 
horns"  and  publicly  meet  the  question  fairly  and  squarely  is 
persona  non  grata  in  circles  polite  and  ethical.  Where  the  "  shoo- 
fly"  treatment  is  not  indulged  in,  maudlin  sentiment  comes  into 
play,  and  this  is  worse  than  the  other. 

Prostitution  is  a  condition,  not  a  theory.  It  is  an  unavoidable 
disease  of  society,  under  present  social  and  economic  conditions. 
That  it  is  a  "  necessary  evil"  when  reduced  to  its  ultimate  is 
open  to  question.  Under  the  old  patriarchal  system  it  was  prob- 
ably limited  in  its  scope,  from  the  stand-point  of  professional 
prostitution.  That  clandestine  prostitution,  or  some  form  of  ille- 
gitimate sexual  relations,  existed  under  the  old  regime  is  unques- 
tionable. The  less  wealthy  males  probably  did  not  supinely 
submit  to  the  monopoly  of  the  females  by  their  more  fortunate 
brethren.  It  is  also  probable  that  the  monogamous  custom  finally 
evolved  by  highly  developed  social  systems  has  increased  the  pro- 
portion of  prostitutes.  The  facts  that  no  advanced  social  system 
can  or  will  tolerate  polygamy,  and  that  the  evolution  of  monog- 
amy has,  in  general,  made  for  the  betterment  of  society  do  not 
disprove  this  assumption. 

History  and  ethnology  show  the  greatest  variation  in  the  atti- 
tude of  society  towards  the  relations  of  the  sexes,  both  legitimate 
and  illegitimate.    The  Moslem  of  to-day  is  a  little  old  fashioned 

303 


504  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

in  his  views.  Solomon,  poet  of  passion  and  founder  of  the  first 
"  wife  trust,"  was  accounted  a  wise  and  God-fearing  man,  and  a 
just.  History  has  not  reflected  harshly  on  his  nine  hundred 
wives  and  concubines;  neither  has  it  wept  maudlin  tears  over 
them.  They  seem  to  have  been  lost  in  the  glory  and  glitter  of  the 
Wise  One's  court.  The  amour  of  Solomon  and  Sheba's  great 
and  glorious  queen  has  been  glossed  over  ever  so  lightly.  Even 
their  first  assignation,  conducted  with  a  pomp,  romantic  glamour, 
gilded  display,  and  circumstance  that  doubtless  excite  the  envy 
of  some  of  the  darlings  of  the  modern  stage,  and  which  was  an 
advertisement  in  perpetuity  that  even  the  most  up-to-date  could 
not  equal,  has  been  swallowed  without  a  grimace.  But  when, 
many  centuries  later,  a  band  of  religious  enthusiasts,  who  inter- 
preted the  Bible  somewhat  literally  and  desired  to  worship  God 
in  their  own  way,  went  to  Utah  and  proceeded  to  put  their 
fanatical  theories  into  practice,  there  was  trouble  immediately. 
Their  fallacious  social  ideas  were  morally  out  of  tune,  according 
to  modern  standards. 

The  Mormons  were  rapidly  solving  the  superfluous  woman 
problem  after  their  own  fashion,  and  that  of  their  long  line  of 
bewhiskered  ancestors, — now  saints  in  Heaven,  if  their  latter-day 
imitators  are  to  be  believed, — when  the  outside  world  raised  a 
protest.  The  raucous  howl  that  went  up  from  the  East,  where 
the  wise  man  did  not  list — much  less  attempt  to  legalize — his 
concubines  nor  the  worldly  woman  concentrate  her  "  protectors," 
penetrated  even  to  the  erstwhile  wilderness  where  worshipped  the 
Mormons. 

Bye  and  bye  the  "  unbelievers"  began  to  invade  the  paradise 
of  the  fanatical  Latter  Day  Saints,  who,  still  following  biblical 
precedent,  with  Joshua  as  their  guiding  star,  did  smite  and  slay 
the  invaders  here  and  there.  And  then  there  was  more  trouble. 
Finally  the  politicians,  wily  Gentiles  who  had  discovered  that 
Utah  was  fair  to  gaze  upon,  and  who  knew  that  scriptural  back- 
ing was  a  rather  flimsy  excuse  for  open  polygamy,  legislated  the 
marrow  of  Mormonism  off  the  face  of  the  6arth,  and  so  far 
erased  a  blot  from  our  scutcheon.  And  now  the  Mormon  must 
needs  be  up  to  date  and  keep  his  concubines  hidden  from  the 


SEXUAL    VICE    AND    CRIME  305 

public  eye,  whilst  the  female  free  lance  of  Mormondom  must 
syndicate  her  protection,  quite  like  her  prototypes  elsewhere. 
Polygamy  is  downed  forever,  and  beneficently,  as  a  recognized 
institution  in  America — another  external  victory  of  social  ex- 
pediency over  the  primitive  nature  of  man. 

There  is  no  room,  and  of  course  should  be  no  room,  for 
polygamy  under  the  American  flag.  Legislation,  however,  does 
not  seem  to  seriously  concern  itself  with  extra-matrimonial 
polygamy,  save  in  so  far  as  our  bigamy  laws  may  cover  the  case. 
A  mere  imitation  of  fair  play  would  be  dangerous  to  society,  even 
were  it  possible  for  legislation  to  correct  man's  natural  tendencies. 

Joseph,  the  founder  of  the  impracticable  doctrine  of  love, 
afterwards  plagiarized  by  Plato,  was  a  scriptural  paragon  who 
has  been  held  up  to  youth  as  a  model  of  all  the  virtues.  His  mod- 
ern disciples,  however,  are  chiefly  of  medical  interest  rather  than 
moral  examples.  By  some  strange  inconsistency  of  the  ancient 
chronicle,  the  "  Captain  of  the  Host"  and  other  dignitaries  of 
Bible  times,  visiting  strange  cities,  often  first  landed  in  some 
brothel,  a  custom  which,  however,  it  must  be  acknowledged,  dif- 
fered from  that  of  some  of  our  up-to-date  dignitaries  only  in  the 
publicity  and  promotion  given  it  by  the  historian. 

The  story  of  Lot  and  his  two  charming  daughters  suggests  a 
laxity  of  morals  in  the  day  of  him  who  wrote  their  history  that 
would  hardly  do  for  this  generation.  Incest,  one  of  the  worst  of 
crimes  in  these  modern  days,  seems  to  have  been,  in  the  mind  of 
the  author  of  the  story,  the  only  salvation  of  a  race  that  was  but 
a  short  remove  from  the  clay  modelling  of  the  Mosaic  cosmogony. 
Whether  the  reporter  of  the  incident  believed  that  the  supply  of 
the  right  kind  of  material  had  run  out,  or  that  the  knack  of 
making  human  beings  out  of  mother  earth  was  a  lost  art,  we  will 
never  know.  It  should  have  occurred  to  the  historian  that  a  rib 
from  each  of  Lot's  daughters  might  have  been  made  into  a  man — 
but  we  will  let  the  chronicle  stand  as  it  is,  along  with  some  other 
queer  "  inspirational"  literature,  which  in  this  instance  is  so 
grossly  human  that  it  is  a  wonder  that  people  can  still  be  found 
who  concede  its  divinity  of  origin. 

Social  tolerance  of  concubinage  and  prostitution,  the  legitimate 


3o6  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

succeSvSors  of  patriarchal  polygamy,  is  not  so  open  at  the  present 
day  as  in  the  none  too  remote  past,  but  society  even  now  tacitly 
approves,  or,  at  least,  endorses  vinder  the  rose  v^hile  condemning 
in  the  open,  what  was  publicly  tolerated  in  the  aristocratic  circles 
of  Europe  not  long  since.  A  hundred  years  ago  virtue  was  the 
prerogative  of  the  proletariat, — for  royal  courts  knew  naught  of 
it, — and  the  only  prerogative  that  the  commoner  might  enjoy 
without  exciting  the  jealousy  of  the  noblesse. 

There  is  little  regarding  the  relations  of  the  sexes  in  history, 
sacred  or  profane,  that  is  likely  to  inspire  the  modern  youth  with 
pure  thoughts  and  noble  aspirations.  Between  the  robbery  and 
murder  and  lechery  of  history,  ancient  and  modern,  profane  and 
sacred,  the  youth  in  quest  of  a  moral  standard  stands,  like  Odys- 
seus, between  Scylla  and  Charybdis.  The  story  of  Cleopatra  is 
not  an  inhibitor  of  pubescent  eroticism.  The  great  Catherine  of 
Russia  has  ever  had  her  fame  tinctured  with  immorality  at  the 
hands  of  the  historian.  "  Good  Queen  Bess"  was  long  held  up 
to  the  mind's  eye  of  youth  as  Catherine's  direct  antithesis,  a  para- 
gon of  all  the  virtues.  Strange  to  say,  however,  as  history  grows 
less  sentimental,  the  character  of  "  Ye  Virgin  Queen"  no  longer 
seems  a  model  for  modern  youth  to  pattern  by. 

It  is  significant  that  social  systems  which  have  been  free  from 
prostitution  have  been  barbarous  or  semibarbarous.  The  ancient 
Germans  did  not  tolerate  it,  and  certain  Siberian  and  African 
tribes  of  to-day  are  free  from  it.  The  rise  and  fall  of  prostitution 
seems  in  general  to  correspond  to  the  degree  of  progress  in  civili- 
zation. That  it  is  an  ancient  institution  the  Scriptures  prove.  Its 
seeds  were  primarily  sown  in  the  shade  of  a  vitiated  religion  in 
Asia.  As  the  varying  fortunes  of  humanity  drove  men  to  seek 
new  fields  in  the  West,  and  Europe  began  to  be  settled,  prostitu- 
tion followed  them  in  their  migrations.  In  the  medieval  cities  of 
Europe,  the  brothel  was  a  recognized  factor  in  civilization. 

The  vigor  with  which  prostitution  has  flourished  has  varied ; 
sexual  vice  has  not  been  a  constant  and  invariable  social  quantity. 
Conditions  have  varied  from  time  to  time,  from  the  grossest  im- 
morality to  comparative  decency.  This,  doubtless,  is  due  to  the 
fact  that  the  causes  of  prostitution  are  not  uniform  either  in 


SEXUAL   VICE   AND   CRIME  307 

quality  or  quantity,  although  alwa}  s  in  operation.  This  fact  is 
optimistic  in  its  bearing,  and  suggests  that  some  of  the  causal 
factors  are  partially  controllable,  even  though  they  cannot,  as  a 
whole,  be  removed. 

Prostitution  is  a  subject  that  has  been  discussed  from  many 
stand-points.  Moralist  and  sociologist  have  alikx  striven  for  the 
betterment  of  the  conditions  underlying  it.  They  have  even 
joined  forces  for  the  common  good.  Neither  alone  nor  in  com- 
bination have  they  succeeded  in  either  suppressing  or  in  any 
great  measure  repressing  the  evil  that  is  the  worm  in  society's 
bud.  The  moralist  has  accomplished  something,  it  is  true. 
Strict  adherence  to  the  tenets  of  religion  has  saved  many  a  man 
and  woman  from  sexual  vice.  But  these  brands  plucked  from  the 
burning  have  been  individual,  and  the  resulting  impression  upon 
the  evil  at  large  has  been  inappreciable.  In  some  instances,  the 
moralist  has  entertained  such  peculiar  views  of  the  social  evil 
that  it  is  inconceivable  that  such  men  and  women  could  ever  exert 
a  beneficial  influence  on  human  conduct  in  any  direction.  Thus,  I 
once  heard  a  well-known  clergyman,  distinguished  for  his  hetero- 
doxy and  alleged  liberality,  say  that  his  remedy  for  the  social 
evil  would  be  to  "  apply  the  torch  to  every  bagnio  in  Chicago, 
and  reduce  it  to  ashes,  inmates  and  all."  Whether  this  was  an 
emotional  "  play  to  the  gallery,"  or  not,  I  cannot  say,  but  it  is 
noteworthy  that  the  reverend  gentleman  appropriated  certain 
sociologic  and  physiologic  views  expressed  in  the  discussion  of 
his  remarks,  and  promulgated  them,  verbatim  et  literatim,  as  his 
own  from  the  pulpit  the  following  Sunday.  The  newly-awakened 
thought  had  grown  until  the  bigot  was  lost  for  the  nonce  in  the 
plagiarism  of  a  new  idea. 

Such  causes  of  prostitution  as  the  love  of  excitement,  dress 
and  jewelry,  temptation  by  unprincipled  men,  necessitous  circum- 
stances, and  alcohol  are  thoroughly  ventilated  in  most  discussions 
of  the  subject.  Moralist  and  sociologist  alike  forget  the  physio- 
logic side  of  the  question.  The  depraved  love  of  man  for  woman 
is,  with  some  alleged  philosophers,  the  chief  cause  of  the  social 
evil,  even  economic  causes  occupying  a  subsidiary  position.  The 
normal  physiologic  love  of  man  for  woman,  the  normal  love,  on 


3o8  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

the  one  hand,  and  the  depraved  love,  on  the  other,  of  woman  for 
man  are  left  out  of  consideration  entirely. 

Whatever  arguments  may  be  brought  to  bear  upon  the  ques- 
tion of  the  social  evil,  nothing  can  controvert  several  fundamental 
propositions, — viz. :  ( i )  Prostitution  has  always  existed  in  so- 
ciety in  one  form  or  another.  (2)  Its  frequency  and  forms  have 
adapted  themselves  to  the  conditions  imposed  by  the  customs 
of  each  social  system.  (3)  The  social  and  economic  conditions 
at  present  prevailing  are  favorable  to  prostitution.  (4)  Pros- 
titution keeps  pace  with  civilization.  As  this  advances,  pros- 
titution increases.  The  proportion  of  prostitutes  is  greater  to- 
day than  formerly.  ( 5 )  Modern  industrial  >  enterprises  are 
peculiarly  productive  of  conditions  favoring  prostitution.  (6) 
Prostitution  is  responsible  for  a  large  proportion  of  the  diseases 
that  afflict  humanity,  and  for  a  tremendous  aggregate  loss  of 
working  capacity  and  monetary  outlay  on  the  part  of  the 
afflicted.  (7)  No  universally  effective  methods  of  repression  or 
regulation  have  ever  been  devised.  (8)  Suppression  is  an  abso- 
lute impossibility,  under  present  conditions.  Prostitution  will 
continue,  so  long  as  human  passions,  uncontrolled  by  higher 
ideals  and  ambitions,  dominate  the  human  will.  It  will  also  con- 
tinue so  long  as  social  and  economic  conditions  put  matrimony 
beyond  the  reach  of  a  large  portion  of  the  male  population,  and 
make  honorable  self-support  impossible  to  the  great  majority  of 
females. 

That  social  progression  tends  to  increase  sexual  vice  is  only 
too  evident,  to  the  physician  especially.  Taking  Chicago  as  an 
example,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  the  proportion  of  prostitutes  in 
the  community  has  vastly  increased  during  the  last  twenty-five 
years.  Certain  special  causes  have  been  in  operation,  it  is  true, 
such  as  the  advent  of  the  department  store,  and  the  Columbian 
Exposition.  A  prominent  police  official  informed  me  that  his 
estimate  of  the  permanent  increase  in  the  number  of  loose 
women  through  the  Exposition  was  fully  ten  thousand.  That 
growing  prominence  as  a  centre  of  civilization  has  resulted  in 
an  increase  of  prostitution  in  Chicago  is  not  surprising.  The 
larger  and  more  cultured  the  community,  the  more  prevalent 


SEXUAL   VICE   AND    CRIME  309 

and  vicious  prostitution  becomes.  This  is  true  of  all  forms  of 
sexual  vice  in  large  cities.  Sexual  perversion  from  satiety  and 
vice  has  its  throne  in  Paris,  the  centre  of  refinement  and  culture ; 
from  Paris  it  radiates  to  all  other  large  centres,  its  extent  vary- 
ing with  the  population,  wealth,  refinement,  and  leisure  of  the 
population.  This  statement  may  be  challenged  as  to  Chicago. 
If  so,  I  shall  ask  for  an  explanation  of  two  facts,  familiar  to 
every  man  about  town,  as  well  as  to  the  police  authorities, — 
viz. :  ( I )  Typic  male  sexual  perverts  have  so  increased  in 
numbers  that  they  have  formed  large  colonies  with  well-known 
resorts.  (2)  Acquired  sexual  perversion  has  so  increased  that 
it  has  received  "  business"  recognition  by  the  keepers  of  bagnios. 
That  perverted  practices  are  demanded  by  its  patrons  is  openly 
recognized  by  at  least  one  Chicago  brothel.  The  patrons  of  this 
establishment  are  drawn  from  the  ranks  of  well-to-do,  sup- 
posedly substantial  and  select  masculinity.  The  "  tariflf"  and 
regulations  of  the  bagnio  in  question  are  prohibitive  of  any 
other  class.  In  London,  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette  expose  and  the 
Cavendish  Square  scandal  disturbed  the  equanimity  of  aris- 
tocratic British  society  not  a  little. 

The  up-to-date  society  young  man  and  "  man  about  town" 
have  scarcely  fingers  enough  on  which  to  count  their  various 
mistresses,  drawn  largely  from  the  ranks  of  clandestine  prosti- 
tutes, but  often  from  social  circles  that  are  more  select.  The 
young  man  of  twenty-five  years  ago  was  less  ambitious  than  his 
modern  successor.  The  atmosphere  in  which  he  was  bred  was 
rather  repressive  than  otherwise  as  compared  with  the  present 
day.  Things  which  are  tolerated  to-day  in  literature,  in  the 
newspapers,  and  on  the  stage  would  have  raised  a  cry  of  in- 
dignant protest  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago.  Time  was  when 
the  young  man  who  wished  the  questionable  delectation  of  wit- 
nessing broad  stage  performances  was  compelled  to  resort  to 
the  "  free  and  easy"  adjunct  to  the  basement  saloon,  that  was 
likely  at  any  moment  to  be  raided  by  the  police,  if  the  pro- 
prietor's dues  to  the  powers  that  be  had  not  been  paid,  or  his 
"  pull"  at  head-quarters  had  weakened  from  political  causes. 
The  modern  vaudeville  and  legitimate  comic  opera  and  society 


3IO  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

drama  have  driven  the  beneath-the-sidewalk  variety  show  to  the 
wall — of  which  more  anon. 

RELATION    TO    THE    VENEREAL   DISEASES 

The  subject  of  prostitution  is  inextricably  commingled  with 
that  of  the  venereal  diseases.  The  immense  social,  economic, 
and  medical  importance  of  these  diseases  is  not  appreciated  by 
society.  If  it  were,  more  attention  would  be  paid  to  the  various 
questions  which  their  study  involves.  A  single  case  of  plague 
in  one  of  our  large  cities  would  cause  a  panic  of  fear  and 
anxiety.  The  infection  of  from  ten  per  cent,  upward  of  our  popu- 
lation with  syphilis,  and  of  from  twenty-five  per  cent,  upward  with 
gonorrhea,  year  in  and  year  out,*  is,  however,  viewed  with  the 
greatest  complacency.  A  trifling  epidemic  of  smallpox  would 
set  Chicago  by  the  ears,  although  that  disease  is  easily  prevent- 
able and  limited  in  its  ravages.  Special  regulations  are  adopted 
against  variola,  and  special  hospitals  built  for  its  reception,  but 
as  yet  we  have  no  public  hospital  which  receives  venereal  dis- 
eases, save  clandestinely,  or  under  protest,  nor  has  any  noble 
philanthropist  arisen  to  do  his  part  in  the  greatest  work  for 
humanity  that  the  human  mind  can  conceive, — the  establishment 
of  an  institution  and  fund  for  the  prevention,  care,  and  study 
of  venereal  afflictions.  That  the  venereal  diseases  depend 
primarily  for  their  origin  upon  prostitution,  and  that  their  dis- 
semination is  due  to  it,  is  scarcely  open  to  argument.  It  follows 
in  the  wake  of  promiscuity,  the  female  being  the  chief  factor  in 
its  evolution  and  transmission,  and  the  male  the  chief  carrier  of 
infection  to  the  innocent,  although  the  respective  contagion  roles 
of  male  and  female  are  interchangeable. 

Every  prostitute  becomes  infected  with  venereal  disease, 
sooner  or  later.  Scarcely  one  escapes  for  more  than  a  year. 
The  clandestine  prostitute  runs  somewhat  less  risks  than  the 
professional,  but  rarely  escapes  infection,  and,  once  infected,  is, 
on  the  average,  more  dangerous  to  society  than  her  publicly 
known  sister.  I  base  this  statement  upon  twenty-five  years'  ex- 
perience in  the  consulting-room.  It  is  verified  by  the  observa- 
tions of  others  in  this  field.    For  every  case  of  venereal  disease 


SEXUAL   VICE   AND   CRIME  311 

in  my  practice  contracted  from  professional  prostitutes,  there 
have  been  at  least  three  or  four  derived  from  very  "  select" 
sources. 

In  St.  Petersburg,  eighty-three  per  cent,  of  the  prostitutes 
were  found  to  have  syphilis.  In  Stuttgart,  every  prostitute  be- 
comes infected  with  gonorrhea  at  least  once  a  year.  In  Berlin, 
fifty  per  cent,  of  the  loose  women  have  gonorrhea  constantly, 
and  the  rest  frequently.  It  is  estimated  that  there  are  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  thousand  syphilitics  in  Berlin.  Paris  has  a  still 
greater  proportion.  New  York,  Dr.  P.  A.  Morrow  says,  has 
two  hundred  thousand  syphilitics.  Chicago's  record,  could  it 
be  compiled,  would  probably  rival  New  York's. 

It  is  the  consensus  of  opinion  among  advanced  physicians 
that  the  majority  of  cases  coming  under  the  care  of  gynecolo- 
gists are  suffering  from  the  immediate  or  remote  results  of 
gonorrhea.  My  own  impression  is  that  fully  one-fourth  the  adult 
population  of  our  great  cities  is  affected  by  venereal  disease  in 
one  form  or  another  or  by  their  sequelae.  The  layman  who 
chances  to  question  the  truth  of  this  assertion  will  doubtless  be 
misled  by  his  ignorance  of  the  causes  of  such  diseases  as  pus- 
tubes,  ovaritis,  metritis,  salpingitis,  peritonitis,  cerebral  hemor- 
rhage, thrombosis,  paresis,  locomotor  ataxia,  etc.  These  various 
names  sound  well,  and  conceal  the  skeleton  in  many  a  closet. 
The  same  high-sounding  names  cover  the  admission  of  the  in- 
curable results  of  venereal  diseases  into  certain  public  hospitals, 
the  managements  of  which  would  hold  up  their  hands  in  horror 
at  the  mere  mention  of  a  venereal  case.  I  have  often  been  com- 
pelled to  invent  polite  names  for  serious  cases  of  gonorrheal 
and  syphilitic  infection,  in  order  to  secure  for  them  admission 
to  hospitals. 

DEFINITION   OF   PROSTITUTION 

The  term  prostitution  is  by  many  applied  to  the  participation 
of  woman  in  sexual  relations  under  any  conditions  save  those 
legalized  under  the  form  of  matrimony.  The  fairness,  morality, 
justice,  or  altruism  of  this  interpretation  cannot  be  proved.  Pros- 
titution is  most  generally  understood  as  the  selling  of  her  person 
by  the  female.    On  broader  grounds  prostitution  justly  implies 


312  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

promiscuous  sexual  relations  on  the  part  of  woman,  whether 
from  necessity  and  purely  mercenary  motives,  or  from  mere 
sexual  depravity.  This  somewhat  arbitrary  definition  is  neces- 
sary to  avoid  a  finely-spun  differentiation  of  classes  in  prostitu- 
tion. There  are  certain  phases  of  illicit  sexual  relations  that  do 
not  justly  come  under  the  head  of  prostitution,  as  a  social  insti- 
tution. The  woman  whom  necessity  compels  to  assume  habitual 
sexual  relations  with  some  particular  man  is  not  necessarily  a 
prostitute.  With  matrimony  denied  her,  starvation  and  the 
alternative  of  suicide  staring  her  in  the  face,  she  merely  exercises 
her  personal  prerogative  and  responds  to  the  instinct  of  self- 
preservation.  So  long  as  society's  moral  code  is  as  it  is,  how- 
ever, the  woman  who  seeks  self-preservation  along  unconven- 
tional lines  of  least  resistance  must  yield  to  social  ostracism,  even 
by  those  who  receive  as  an  equal  the  male  actor  in  the  tragedy.  It 
is  better  so,  for,  however  inconsistent  society  may  be,  it  must 
have  its  ideals,  even  though  they  are  often  honored  in  the  breach 
rather  than  in  the  observance. 

It  has  been  asserted  that  the  woman  who  sacrifices  herself  to 
necessity  by  a  marriage  de  convenance  practically  prostitutes 
herself.  This  is  not  fair,  nor  is  it  true,  but  word  of  priest  or 
civil  authority  does  not  raise  her  moral  plane  above  that  of  some 
of  her  less  fortunate  sisters  who,  no  less  than  she,  have  done  the 
best  they  could  in  the  battle  of  life. 

Whether  the  woman  who  accomplishes  self-preservation  by 
exchanging  herself,  matrimonially  or  otherwise,  as  a  fair  quid 
pro  quo  for  subsistence  is  a  prostitute  or  not  depends  upon  the 
standard  she  fixes  for  herself,  and  her  desire  to  give  full  moral 
value  for  her  support,  which  necessarily  implies  a  monopoly  of 
her  person. 

Is  the  young  and  innocent  girl  who  yields  to  nature's  prompt- 
ings— whose  instinct  of  self-preservation  is  swallowed  up  by  the 
instinct  of  propagation — and  falls  a  victim  to  the  seductive  wiles 
of  her  friend  the  enemy,  man,  a  prostitute?  If  so,  and  her 
seducer  marries  her,  whether  willingly  or  at  the  pistol's  point,  is 
she  then  no  longer  a  prostitute? 

It  is  a  safe  proposition  that  the  conflict  of  social  laws  and 


SEXUAL    VICE    AND    CRIME  313 

social  nomenclature  with  natural  law  has  not  been  repressive 
of  prostitution.  On  the  contrary,  the  social  ostracism  inflicted  as 
a  penalty  for  being  found  out  has  filled  houses  of  prostitution 
time  out  of  mind.  Publicly  affix  the  stamp,  "  Ruined,"  on  a 
woman,  and  she  has  no  further  object  in  being  decent  and  self- 
respecting  ;  she  has  lost  her  standard  ;  she  has  no  mark  at  which 
to  aim ;  she  can  no  longer  have  ideals ;  she  is  driven  to  open 
prostitution,  mayhap,  while  her  undiscovered  sisters  in  her  own 
social  circle  ply  their  occupation  of  viciously  self-indulgent  or 
mercenary  sexuality  undisturbed,  and  the  man  in  the  case  seeks 
more  worlds  to  conquer. 

The  partiality  exhibited  by  the  "  Four  Hundred"  towards  the 
man  in  the  case  excites  resentment  in  the  woman's  mind,  and 
has  an  influence  of  its  own  in  determining  some  women's  careers. 
That  society  makes  an  exception  in  the  case  of  female  celebrities 
also  rankles  in  woman's  bosom,  and  sometimes  excites  in  her 
a  spirit  of  emulation. 

CLASSIFICATION    OF   PROSTITUTES 

Prostitutes  may  be  classified  as  : 

I.  Clandestine  prostitutes.  These  are  of  several  types, — 
viz. : 

(a)  Women  whom  necessity  has  driven  to  prostitution,  but 
who  neither  enter  houses  of  ill-fame  nor  solicit  patronage.  Some 
of  these  eventually  enter  houses.  Many  of  them  do  not  get  an 
opportunity  to  do  so,  although  a  large  proportion,  sooner  or 
later,  bring  up  in  the  lowest  brothels.  Only  a  few  ever  enter 
first-class  houses,  to  which  "  many  are  called  but  few  are  chosen." 
Such  houses  demand  not  only  physical  attractions,  but  a  certain 
degree  of  ability  as  entertainers.  Their  proprietors  are  con- 
stantly on  the  lookout  for  available  material,  and  it  rarely  re- 
mains long  in  the  ranks  of  the  mercenary  clandestines,  if,  indeed, 
it  is  ever  allowed  to  enter  them. 

(b)  Women  who,  although  provided  with  the  ordinary  com- 
forts of  life,  and  perhaps  some  of  the  luxuries,  bestow  their 
charms  on  one  or  more  individuals  as  the  price  of  excitement, 
entertainment,  jewelry,  elegancies  of  dress,  and  wine. 


314  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

(c)  Women  who  are  promiscuous  as  a  result  of  innate  ab- 
normally developed  sexuality, — psycho-sexual  degeneracy, — and 
with  no  other  object  than  its  gratification.  Such  women  are  the 
sex  counterparts  of  the  roue,  and  are  more  frequent  even  in 
high-toned  society  than  most  people  suppose.  These  women 
are  prostitutes  both  by  birth  and  education.  They  have  "  the 
whore's  forehead,  which  refuses  to  be  ashamed."  Married  or 
single,  they  are  the  chief  competitors  of  the  professional  pros- 
titute, as  any  one  may  learn  by  investigation.  The  testimony 
of  young  and  old  "  bloods"  about  town,  and  of  the  profes- 
sionals themselves,  on  this  point,  would  be  rather  interesting 
reading. 

2.  Public  professional  prostitutes  in  houses,  who  market 
themselves  whenever  and  wherever  they  can,  and  at  the  best 
price  possible. 

3.  The  criminal  prostitute,  comprising  (a)  the  product  of 
the  slums,  who  oscillates  between  crime  and  prostitution,  or 
alternates  them  according  to  her  degree  of  beauty  and  necessi- 
ties. She  is  a  degenerate  usually,  and  her  prostitution  and  crim- 
inality both  result  from  vicious  environmental  influences,  over 
which  she  has  no  control.  She  falls  young,  and  almost  of  neces- 
sity never  rises  again,  (b)  Women  who  begin  by  prostitution  and 
end  by  becoming  criminals.  They  may  or  may  not  be  primarily 
degenerates. 

The  lower-class  prostitute  is  so  from  necessity.  The  period 
of  choice  has  long  since  passed.  The  better  class  comprises 
women  who  follow  the  life  from  choice,  as  well  as  those  who 
are  compelled  by  necessity  to  resort  to  it.  In  many  cases  the 
necessity  argument  is  but  a  cloak  for  the  deliberately  chosen  life. 
The  higher-class  prostitute  is  often  a  woman  who  could  do  better 
if  she  would. 

The  natural  "  born  prostitute,"  who  eagerly  awaits  the 
coming  of  the  "  tempter,"  is  much  in  evidence  all  along  the  line 
of  prostitution.  She  is  seen  at  her  best — or  worst — in  the  better 
class  of  brothels.  This,  with  apologies  to  the  ambitious  amateur 
"  bom  prostitute"  in  ultra-fashionable  society. 


SEXUAL   VICE   AND    CRIME  315 

ETIOLOGY   OF   PROSTITUTION 

The  causes  of  prostitution  embrace  every  aspect  of  human 
nature  and  every  phase  of  our  social  and  economic  conditions. 
The  history  of  prostitution,  Hke  that  of  crime,  is  interwoven  with 
every  human  interest.  No  subject  of  social  interest  is  more 
comprehensive.  All  of  life,  all  of  our  social  system,  revolves 
around  the  relations  of  the  sexes.  A  comprehensive  presentation 
of  the  causes  of  prostitution,  therefore,  would  obviously  be  im- 
possible, save  in  a  work  of  encyclopedic  pretensions.  I  must 
needs,  therefore,  content  myself  with  what  seem  to  be  the  main 
factors  in  the  etiology  of  the  social  evil. 

The  causes  of  prostitution  may  be  classified  as  predisposing 
and  exciting.  The  basic  classification  is  very  simple, — viz.:  i. 
The  predisposing  cause  of  prostitution  is  woman,  with  her 
charms,  physiologic  and  other  desires,  ambitions,  and  necessities. 
She  may  or  may  not  be  a  degenerate.  2.  The  exciting  or  deter- 
mining cause  is  man,  operating  through  the  sexual  instincts  that 
have  been  his  since  the  beginning  of  the  race. 

The  sexual  instinct  with  which  nature  has  endowed  man  and 
woman  differs  in  kind  and  degree,  that  of  the  woman  being 
higher  and  nobler  in  aim  than  that  of  man.  Were  this  not  true, 
man  would  be  too  busily  occupied  with  his  selfish  ambitions  to 
spare  time  for  procreation.  The  normal  sexual  instinct  of 
woman  is  primarily  unselfish ;  that  of  man  is  supremely  selfish. 
Unselfish  though  it  is  by  comparison,  the  sexual  instinct  of 
woman,  whether  diverted  from  its  legitimate  end  or  not,  is  the 
chief  weapon  used  by  man  to  accomplish  her  downfall.  The  law 
of  supply  and  demand  regulates  prostitution,  it  is  true,  but  the 
demand,  as  the  primary  cause,  is  not  altogether  one-sided.  Much 
"  bally  rot,"  as  Kipling  would  say,  has  been  written  of  the  causes 
of  the  downfall  of  woman.  While  admitting  that  the  exciting 
cause  is  the  selfish  outgrowth  of  man's  physiology,  something 
must  be  conceded  to  woman's  own  physiologic  desires.  The 
sentiment  of  love  is  founded  largely  upon  the  maternal  instinct 
in  woman,  and  she  is  not  always  logical  nor  just  to  herself 
in  satisfying  or  attempting  to  satisfy  that  craving.     A  30ung, 


3i6  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

inexperienced  girl,  blinded  by  the  emotions  of  love  and  inex- 
perienced idealism,  is  safe  only  in  so  far  as  the  self-control  and 
innate  honor  of  her  lover  make  her  safe.  Fear  of  consequences 
may  inhibit  the  desires  of  both  man  and  woman,  especially  of  the 
latter,  but  the  domination  of  will  over  desire  is  not  often  effec- 
tive in  women  in  whom  selfishness  has  not  been  developed. 
When  unworthy  love  enters  the  door  of  woman's  boudoir,  virtue, 
reason,  and  will  are  likely  to  fly  out  of  the  window.  Moralize 
as  they  may,  our  social  purists  cannot  alter  the  fact  that  a  woman 
in  love  with  a  weak  or  unprincipled  man  is  a  woman  in  danger. 
That  men  of  the  best  intentions  often  lose  sexual  self-control, 
sometimes  to  their  everlasting  regret,  must  be  conceded  by  every 
one  who  knows  human  nature.  Whether  or  not  the  woman  who 
falls  is  forever  lost  depends  on  the  attitude  of  her  lover,  whether 
she  is  discovered  or  not,  her  moral  balance,  her  environment,  and 
necessities.  A  single  indiscretion  does  not  make  a  prostitute, 
any  more  than  a  single  bottle  makes  an  inebriate. 

Platonic  love  is  believed  by  some  not  only  to  exist,  but  to  be 
safe  meeting-ground  for  the  sexes.  Mutual  respect  and  admira- 
tion often  exist  between  the  sexes, — heaven  help  the  world  if  it 
did  not, — but  platonic  love  is  but  a  phantasmagoric  pons  asino- 
runt,  over  which  the  sexually  apathetic  female  and  the  incapable 
male  may  approach  the  opposite  sex.  Woe  betide  the  normal 
man  or  woman  who  trusts  it.  The  Lie  of  Platonic  Love  is  a  reef 
on  which  many  credulous  dupes  have  been  wrecked. 

Nymphomania,  from  sexual  or  nervous  disease,  is  found 
among  all  classes  of  prostitutes  as  a  definite  cause  of  woman's 
depravity. 

As  already  stated,  the  element  of  female  physiology  in  the 
causation  of  prostitution  is  usually  forgotten  by  social  philoso- 
phers. Its  suggestion  is  resented  by  many,  more  especially  by 
female  reformers,  and  that  large  portion  of  femininity  which 
condemns  the  erring  but  does  not  in  the  least  understand  the 
causes  of  prostitution.  The  large  percentage  of  women  who  are 
permanently  frigid,  and  in  whom  normal  sexuality  is  a  matter  of 
marital  education  entirely,  cannot,  of  course,  understand  the  moral 
lapses  of  her  socially  less  fortunate  but  more  normal  sisters. 


SEXUAL   VICE   AND    CRIME  317 

Still  less  can  she  understand  the  sins  of  the  woman  born  with 
abnormally  developed  sexuality, — the  sexual  degenerate.  The 
sexual  furor  of  the  diseased  brain  or  the  hysterical  nervous  sys- 
tem, recognized  as  nymphomania  by  physicians,  our  frigid 
female  philosopher  knows  still  less  of.  Her  explanation  of  the 
social  evil  is  male  desire  and  female  frivolity ;  this  is  as  far  as 
she  ever  gets.  What  knows  she  of  that  Eternal  Feminine  which 
craves  for  the  Eternal  Masculine?  How  shall  we  explain  to 
her  the  maternal  instinct,  crying  out  in  the  wilderness  of  the 
legitimately  unattainable, — the  voice  in  the  darkness  of  conven- 
tionality? She  cannot  understand — nature  has  prevented  her. 
Even  as  the  doctrines  of  Buddha  are  merely  word  forms  in  the 
Caucasian  mind,  so  are  physiologic  and  psycho-sexual  phe- 
nomena a  terra  incognita  to  the  female  moral  philosopher. 

But  for  the  purposes  of  this  chapter,  and  for  the  sake  of  argu- 
ment, I  am  more  than  willing  to  assume  that  the  Mosaic  cos- 
mogony is  correct,  and  that  man's  downfall  was  due  to  the  malign 
influence  upon  woman  of  the  rib  from  which  she  sprang,  not  to 
any  of  the  qualities  properly  belonging  to  her  sex.  I  will  also 
admit  that  most  of  woman's  evil  qualities  are  to-day  due  to  the 
vicious  heredity  imparted  by  the  rib.  The  snake  was  merely  an 
incident ;  he  always  is.  His  cloak  fell  upon  man,  as  his  legitimate 
successor,  and  man  has  been  attending  faithfully  to  the  tempta- 
tion business  ever  since.  Indeed,  a  photograph  of  the  original 
snake,  were  such  procurable,  would  quite  likely  bear  a  strong 
likeness  to  Adam  himself. 

Some  one  has  said,  "  God  made  man,  but  man  makes 
woman."  There  is  much  of  truth  in  this.  Woman  is  naturally 
pure,  as  compared  with  man.  The  normal  maternal  instinct  has 
not  in  it  the  selfish  soul  of  evil.  Man  determines  whether  the 
universal  mother  heart  shall  have  a  legitimate  outlet  for  its 
emotions, — a  legitimate  satisfaction  for  the  maternal  instinct. 

The  bearing  of  various  social  and  economic  conditions  upon 
prostitution  is  more  pertinent  than  upon  criminality.  Individuals 
whose  honesty  and  regard  for  the  rights  of  others  are  an  unstable 
quantity  are  often  deterred  from  overt  acts  through  fear  of  the 
law.    This  source  of  inhibition  is  inoperable  in  the  case  of  prosti- 


3i8  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

tution.  There  is  no  penalty  other  than  social  ostracism  attached 
to  it,  and  this  may  be  escaped  by  concealment.  Detection  of 
crime  is  not  so  easily  avoided.  Another  important  point  is  that 
the  co-operation  of  one  or  more  individuals  of  the  opposite  sex 
is  necessary  to  prostitution.  Crime,  however,  can  be  perpetrated 
single-handed.  A  large  proportion  of  the  male  sex  fosters  pros- 
titution, and  incurs  no  penalty  in  so  doing.  Persons  are  rarely 
forced  by  others  into  crime ;  women  are  often  forcibly  coerced 
into  prostitution. 

SEX    STANDARDS 

The  objection  made  by  some  moralists  to  attempts  at  the 
logical  study  of  prostitution  is  that  a  double  standard  is  thereby 
set  up,  one  for  man  and  another  for  woman.  This  question 
deserves  consideration. 

In  the  first  place,  prostitution  is  a  social  institution  that  was 
established  so  long  ago  that  the  memory  of  man  runneth  not  to 
the  contrary.  It  exists  in  every  social  system.  It  was  once 
"  respectable,"  as  in  Sparta  and  Greece,  where  public  courtesans 
were  treated  with  the  greatest  respect  and  consideration.  In  the 
Temple  of  Corinth  religion  made  prostitution  sacred,  and  women 
were  set  apart  for  the  purpose.  In  certain  parts  of  the  Orient  it 
is  to-day  a  religious  rite.  In  Paris,  the  centre  from  which  civili- 
zation radiates,  the  prostitute  is  a  very  important  "  personage." 
The  more  noted  of  the  demi-monde  set  the  fashions  for  the 
world.  Their  salons  are  frequented  by  the  masculine  elite. 
Wealth,  culture,  genius,  all  are  thrown  at  the  feet  of  the  Parisian 
courtesan.  There  is  nothing  clandestine  about  her  calling,  nor 
in  the  attentions  paid  to  her  by  her  clientele. 

The  dividing  line  between  man  and  woman,  so  far  as  prosti- 
tution is  concerned,  was  drawn  the  moment  prostitution  sprang 
into  existence.  The  institution  was  founded  on  man's  desire  to 
purchase,  quickly  responded  to  by  woman's  willingness  to  sell, 
from  necessity  or  otherwise. 

In  the  strict  sense  of  the  term,  male  prostitutes  are  abundant. 
According  to  the  sense  in  which  the  term  is  usually  employed, 
they  are  rare,  although  the  "  kept  man"  is  not  an  unknown 


SEXUAL    VICE    AND    CRIME  319 

quantity.  Prostitution  as  a  business  is  almost  unknown  among 
men.  I  have  never  known  of  but  one  house  of  prostitution  in 
which  the  inmates  were  men  and  the  patrons  women.  This  was 
described  to  me  by  a  well-known  police  official  of  one  of  our 
large  cities  many  years  ago.  In  speaking  of  the  rarity  of  such 
institutions,  I  am,  of  course,  excluding  male  sexual  perverts,  who 
have  resorts  in  every  large  city. 

It  is  evident  that  the  question  of  prostitution  does  not  revolve 
around  the  relative  degree  of  morality  possessed  by  the  prosti- 
tute and  her  male  patron,  nor  yet  around  the  question  of  whether 
or  not  the  patron  should  receive  the  same  social  ostracism  as 
does  the  courtesan.  We  are  discussing  conditions  as  they  are, 
not  as  they  would  be  were  human  nature  perfect. 

The  average  moralist  who  advocates  the  single  standard  for 
man  and  woman  does  not  seem  to  be  particular  as  to  how  moral 
sex  equality  shall  be  secured.  He  or  she  most  often  complains  of 
the  restrictions  placed  upon  woman,  rather  than  of  the  license 
given  to  man.  The  complaint  is  often  an  innately  depraved 
woman's  cry  for  license.  Exactly  how  the  world  will  be  bettered 
by  reducing  woman  to  man's  moral  level  is  not  apparent.  Social 
reformers  and  advocates  of  woman's  rights  mostly  complain,  not 
that  man  has  too  much  license,  but  that  woman  has  too  little. 
So  far  as  my  personal  observations  go,  I  have  no  reason  to 
believe  that  the  assumption  of  masculine  liberty  on  the  part  of 
women  is  conducive  to  morality.  When  woman  shows  an  in- 
clination towards  the  freedom  accorded  to  man,  he  is  usually  only 
too  willing  to  help  her,  for  his  own  ends.  From  liberty  to  license 
is  but  a  step,  a  step  often  taken  almost  unconsciously.  Mascu- 
line freedom  is  sometimes  safe  for  woman — but  look  at  the 
woman.  Masculine  in  mentality,  features,  and  tastes,  and  physi- 
cally unattractive, — why  should  she  not  be  safe  ? 

Man  demands  much  of  woman,  much  that  he  is  unwilling  to 
grant  her.  But,  after  all,  is  this  not  as  it  should  be?  Man's 
ideal  of  what  woman  ought  to  be  is  based  upon  his  conception  of 
what  she  normally  is, — higher  and  better  than  himself;  aye.  as 
high  as  the  angels.  His  own  selfish  desires  arc  the  chief  factor 
in  dragging  woman  off  the  pedestal  upon  which  he  himself  has 


320  THE   DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

placed  her,  yet  if  she  resists  he  idoHzes  her.  His  method  of  sepa- 
rating the  tares  from  the  wheat  is  illogical,  unfair,  and  contra- 
dictory, it  is  true,  still  it  is  his  method.  Man  is  strangely 
inconsistent ;   he  worships  what  he  persistently  tries  to  destroy. 

Natural  law  laid  the  foundation  of  a  fundamental  sexual 
difference  between  man  and  woman.  It  is  this  difference  that 
makes  a  double  moral  standard  possible.  It  enables  normal 
woman  to  rise  above  the  moral  plane  to  which  man's  nature 
inclines  him.  Underlying  much  of  man's  immorality  is  the  fact 
that  nature  designed  him  as  a  polygamous  animal.  Social  cus- 
tom in  Christian  communities  has  wisely  and  properly  put 
polygamy  under  the  ban,  and  inhibited,  to  a  great  extent,  man's 
polygamous  instincts,  but  they  are  not  so  far  under  control  that 
they  do  not  drag  a  large  proportion  of  normal  men  down  to  a 
lower  standard  than  the  artificial  one  set  for  them  by  society  as  a 
matter  of  expediency,  bringing  the  male  sex  nearer  the  primor- 
dial plane  upon  which  it  was  placed  by  biologic  law. 

A  moment's  reflection  should  demonstrate  to  any  thinking 
individual  the  primarily  polygamous  nature  of  the  human  male. 
The  sexual  instinct  was  not  given  man  for  his  pleasure,  but  for 
the  purpose  of  procreation.  It  is,  in  effect,  a  species  of  hunger. 
Back  of  it  all,  possibly,  is  chemical  affinity.  Whatever  its  nature, 
it  is  the  bond  that  makes  kin  the  whole  organic  world.  In  the 
higher  animals  the  pleasurable  performance  of  the  function  is 
purely  secondary.  Were  it  not  necessary,  in  order  that  a  given 
species  should  not  forget  the  function  altogether,  the  pleasure 
would  not  exist.  When  the  object  of  the  sexual  act,  impreg- 
nation, has  been  accomplished,  both  act  and  desire  should 
cease.  In  distinctly  monogamous  species  they  do  cease.  In 
all  species  save  man,  they  cease  in  the  female.  In  monoga- 
mous lower  animals  they  also  cease  in  the  male.  I  believe  that 
their  persistence  in  the  human  female  is  the  outgrowth  of  the 
adoption  of  monogamy  by  naturally  polygamous  man.  They  are 
the  outgrowth  of  woman's  response  to  the  physiologic  demands 
of  man.  There  should  be  neither  sexual  desire  nor  cohabitation 
on  the  part  of  woman  during  lactation.  Their  persistence  is 
explicable  upon  the  same  grounds  as  during  pregnancy.    Sexual 


SEXUAL   VICE    AND    CRIME  321 

desire  on  the  part  of  the  human  male  during  the  pregnancy  and 
lactation  of  his  mate  is  fundamentally  natural.  He  differs  in 
this  respect  from  his  biologic  next  of  kin,  the  gorilla,  chimpanzee, 
and  other  anthropoids  who  are  monogamous.  Nature  did  not 
intend  that  the  sexual  function  should  lie  dormant  in  him  during 
the  period  in  question.  In  monogamous  social  systems  the  result 
is  either  illicit  adventures  or  the  performance  of  the  sexual  func- 
tion on  the  part  of  his  pregnant  or  nursing  mate  for  the  sole 
purpose  of  physical  gratification.  The  idea  that  this  is  in  con- 
formity with  natural  law  is  absurd.  It  is  neither  complimentary 
to  biologic  law  nor  to  Deity. 

Man's  power  of  procreation  lasts,  upon  the  average,  from 
forty-five  to  fifty  years ;  woman's  about  twenty-five  to  thirty 
years.  Sexual  desire  lasts  far  beyond  the  period  of  procreative 
activity.  A  man  at  from  thirty-five  to  forty-five  is  in  his  prime. 
His  desires  are  not  so  active  as  in  youth,  but  if  he  be  in  normal 
health,  he  is  as  well  or  better  fitted  for  the  procreation  of  de- 
sirable children  that  at  any  period  during  his  sexual  career.  He 
may  go  on  procreating  healthy  offspring  for  many  years.  A 
comparison  of  this  period  with  the  corresponding  period  of 
woman's  sexual  life  shows  the  situation  at  a  glance.  The  per- 
sistence of  sexual  desire  in  woman  after  the  menopause  is  arti- 
ficial, and  due  to  long  cultivation  by  response  to  man's  desires  in 
monogamous  relations.  It  has  no  longer  a  natural  object,  for 
the  power  of  procreation  has  ceased.  Indeed,  the  power  of  pro- 
creation entirely  ceases  in  many  women,  and  diminishes  greatly 
in  all,  long  before  the  menopause.  Unless  it  be  claimed  that  the 
sexual  function  was  primarily  designed  for  human  pleasure,  the 
foregoing  comparison  of  the  sexual  life  of  man  and  woman 
should  convince  one  that  man  is  polygamous  by  nature.  The 
instinctive  tendency  of  the  male  towards  polygamy  is  one  of  the 
conditions  against  which  normal  men  who  would  be  moral  have 
to  fight.  It  is  one  of  the  fundamental  causes  of  sexual  vice. 
Once  social  inhibitions  are  removed,  man  drops  only  too  readily 
into  his  natural  role  of  woman-hunter. 

Woman  becomes  polyandrous  only  as  a  result  of  disease,  de- 
generacy, or  vicious  surroundings.     Her  natural   bent   is   not 


322  THE   DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

towards  polyandry.  She  has  not  that  to  fight.  If  she  had  to 
combat  natural  polyandrous  instincts  as  well  as  man's  polyga- 
mous instincts  and  acquired  depravity,  her  position  in  the  moral 
scale  would  be  low  indeed.  Social  custom  is  repressive  of  sexual 
indulgence  in  woman.  She  is  normally  less  sexual  from  the 
stand-point  of  pleasure  alone.  Normally,  her  sexual  instinct  is 
the  outward  expression  of  the  maternal  impulse.  Once  this 
craving  is  satisfied,  the  purely  sexual  impulse  should  be  relegated 
to  the  background  in  her  physiology.  Conjoined  with  the  repres- 
sive influences  of  our  social  conditions,  the  normally  passive 
sexuality  of  woman  modifies  her  heredity  to  a  marked  degree. 
As  already  remarked,  a  large  proportion  of  women  are  normally 
frigid.  A  certain  proportion  of  those  who  are  not  so  normally 
are  frigid  until  sexually  trained  by  man. 

In  man  there  is  no  normal  outlet  for  sexual  desire  save  the 
act  itself.  In  women  the  menstrual  molimen  serves  this  purpose. 
There  is  little  doubt  that  nature  designed  that  the  act  of  pro- 
creation should  occur  just  prior  to  menstruation.  The  prelim- 
inary congestion  is  associated  with  heightened  desire,  which  the 
menstrual  flow  relieves.  There  are,  then,  many  natural  reasons 
for  the  general  adoption  of  a  double  standard  of  morality  for 
men  and  women.  Laying  aside  all  physical  reasons  for  a  double 
standard,  heaven  help  the  world  when  the  natural  purity  of 
woman,  as  compared  with  man,  is  no  longer  recognized,  and  she 
is  dragged  down  to  his  level.  Man,  without  his  ideals  of  femi- 
ninity, would  rapidly  degenerate  to  savagery.  There  would  be 
nothing  in  this  world  worth  striving  for,  and  very  little  worth 
living  for.  Sin  is  blacker  in  woman  than  in  man,  simply  because 
she  is  by  nature  purer  and  has  farther  to  fall.  As  a  distinguished 
professor  of  ethics  once  said,  "  By  condemning  the  sexual  sins 
of  woman,  more  than  those  of  man,  we  pay  her  the  highest  and 
truest  of  compliments."  ^ 

Be  it  not  understood  that  I  believe  that  man  should  not  rise 
more  nearly  to  woman's  level.     I  simply  claim  that  he  has  not 

'  Remarks  of  Mr.  M.  Mangasarian,  before  the  Sunset  Club  of  Chi- 
cago. 


SEXUAL   VICE   AND    CRIME  323 

yet  so  risen,  and  protest  against  any  attempt  at  a  sexual  equality 
which  shall  drag  woman  down  to  his  lower  plane.  The  ideal 
masculine  cannot  be  raised  by  lowering  the  ideal  feminine.  Of 
the  necessity  of  raising  man's  sexual  standard  I  shall  speak 
again.  Thus  far,  we  have  merely  dealt  with  conditions  as  they 
are ;  with  the  present  status  of  the  conflict  between  natural  law 
and  innate  depravity,  on  the  one  side,  and  social  expediency  and 
morals  on  the  other. 

THE   SUPERFLUOUS    WOMAN. 

It  would  be  very  dangerous  doctrine,  indeed,  to  say  that 
monogamy  is  not  the  best  and  safest  relation  of  the  sexes  under 
our  present  social  conditions,  but  just  as  the  soul  of  good  may 
be  found  in  some  things  that  are  evil,  so  the  essentially  good  may 
contain  the  germ  of  evil.  The  institution  of  monogamy  certainly 
has  its  defects,  not  the  least  of  which  is  the  "  superfluous 
woman."  The  disproportion  hi  the  number  of  males  and  females 
existing  in  some  social  systems  has  had  its  influence  in  the  eti- 
ology of  prostitution.  The  ratio  of  males  to  females  varies  in 
different  social  systems,  but  in  old-established  communities  the 
proportion  of  females  is  often  far  in  excess  of  the  males. 

There  are  many  industrial  and  social  problems  that  have  the 
superfluous  woman  as  their  nucleus,  and  most  of  these  questions 
are  intrinsically  related  to  prostitution.  Female  competition  in 
the  labor  market  and  inferior  wages  for  females  are  important  in 
this  connection.  The  prime  consideration  is  the  fact  that  if  polyg- 
amy was  part  of  nature's  original  human  sexual  plan,  man  was 
primarily  supposed  to  care  for  as  many  females  as  his  tastes  and 
purse  would  permit.  The  corollary  of  this  proposition  is  that 
despite  its  blessings,  monogamy  has,  to  a  certain  degree,  aided 
in  depriving  woman  of  her  natural  means  of  support,  and  has 
driven  her  to  obtaining  it  by  hook  or  crook.  The  paucity  of 
means  of  earning  an  honest  livlihood  open  to  woman  comes  into 
operation  here. 

In  new  communities,  where  women  are  scarce,  prostitution 
does  not  develop  locally.  Respectable  women  receive  multitudi- 
nous offers  of  marriage,    Prostitutes  exist,  but  they  are  imported, 


324  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

not  local  products,  and  the  dividing  line  between  virtue  and  vice 
is  very  clearly  defined.  Clandestine  prostitution  does  not  often 
exist  in  frontier  settlements ;  women  are  too  speedily  classified. 

In  the  New  England  States,  especially  in  the  factory  towns, 
the  female  population  greatly  outnumbers  the  male.  Vice  flour- 
ishes in  these  towns.  Years  ago,  Sanger  -  called  attention  to  the 
fact  that  the  New  York  procuress  found  the  factory  towns  of 
Yankeedom  a  fertile  field  for  raising  recruits  for  the  brothel. 
He  relates  an  instance  in  which  a  large  family  of  sisters  was 
enticed  to  the  metropolis,  one  after  the  other,  and  with  a  clear 
understanding  of  their  destination  before  they  left  home,  entered 
certain  houses  of  ill  fame, — "  Sister's  Row."  My  own  observa- 
tions, made  some  years  since  in  New  York  reformatory  institu- 
tions and  hospitals,  led  me  to  the  conclusion  that  conditions  had 
not  changed  greatly  since  Sanger  wrote. 

INDUSTRIAL    CONDITIONS 

Industrial  conditions  have  always  been  a  most  important  fac- 
tor in  the  social  evil  problem.  Never  in  the  history  of  this  coun- 
try has  it  been  so  prominent  as  it  is  now.  Interwoven  with  the 
industrial  factor  is  the  increasing  cost  of  living  and  the  real,  or 
alleged,  necessity  of  keeping  up  appearances,  under  the  pressure 
of  social  demand.  The  so-called  higher  education  of  the  pro- 
letariat is  also  an  element.  Women  are  fast  crowding  into  the 
industrial  field  and  occupying  positions  hitherto  filled  by  men. 
This  is  retroactive.  Women  are  underpaid,  and  men  must  of 
necessity  be  forced  to  adapt  themselves,  to  a  certain  extent,  to 
woman's  salary  plane.  Women  are,  however,  refused  the  same 
pay  for  the  same  work  as  men  demand,  and  whenever  the  exi- 
gencies of  the  position  will  permit  she  takes  man's  place.  This 
is  not  due  to  any  desire  on  the  part  of  the  employer  to  enhance 
woman's  comfort  in  life.  He  is  simply  putting  the  commercial 
screws  to  the  last  notch,  to  express  a  larger  percentage  of  profit 
for  himself. 

Women  in  factories  are  worked  like  beasts  of  burden,  at 

'  History  of  Prostitution. 


SEXUAL   VICE   AND   CRIME  325 

starvation  wages.  Sweat-shops  employ  women  in  shirt-making 
at  so  much  a  dozen.  When  the  shirts  are  done  and  dehvered  to 
their  employer,  he  often  finds  the  workmanship  "  defective,"  and 
refuses  to  pay  more  than  half  the  stipulated  sum.  Sometimes  he 
refuses  to  give  any  compensation  whatever,  but  he  sells  the  shirts 
at  the  usual  price. 

That  there  is  a  causal  relation  of  adverse  industrial  condi- 
tions to  prostitution  can  be  proved  in  a  very  simple  manner.  A 
comparison  of  the  wages  of  the  average  shop-girl  with  her  neces- 
sary expenditures  is  all  that  is  requisite.  The  self-supporting 
woman  on  a  small  wage  is  in  a  very  precarious  position,  especially 
if,  as  is  often  the  case,  she  must  dress  decently  to  hold  her  posi- 
tion. A  girl  living  at  home  can,  of  course,  work  in  a  small  sal- 
aried position,  and  keep  up  a  good  appearance,  without  resorting 
to  immorality  as  a  means  of  subsistence.  Living  is  so  expensive 
that  it  is  almost  impossible  for  a  woman  of  refined  tastes  to  live 
and  dress  decently  on  less  than  six  hundred  a  year,  yet  how  many 
there  are  who  receive  much  less.  She  must  be  a  good  manager, 
indeed,  who  can  make  ends  meet  on  the  salary  often  paid,  if  she 
is  compelled  to  "  keep  up  appearances." 

An  enterprising  woman  once  visited  many  of  the  city's  fac- 
tories and  workshops  to  investigate  the  conditions  of  the  working 
girls.  The  story  told  was  pitiful.  It  was  found  that  in  most  of 
the  places  visited  that  labor  was  a  bondage,  the  laborer  a  slave, 
and  blood  cheaper  than  thread  and  needles. 

A  child  of  fifteen  was  working  nine  hours  a  day  to  earn  six- 
teen cents ;  another  girl  of  seventeen  earned  eighty  cents  a  week, 
working  from  7.30  in  the  morning  to  5.30  in  the  evening.  A 
young  woman  engaged  in  making  bustles  received  fifty  cents  a 
day.  In  another  shop,  wages  ranged  from  one  dollar  to  three 
dollars  a  week.  There  were  hundreds  of  grown  women  who 
toiled  from  morning  till  night  in  the  "  slop  shops"  for  two  dol- 
lars and  three  dollars  a  week.  In  reply  to  questions,  one  young 
girl  said, — 

"  I  work  ten  hours  a  day  and  make  from  four  to  five  dollars 
a  week." 

"  What  does  your  board  cost  ?" 


326  THE   DISEASES   OF   SOCIETY 

"  With  washing  included,  diree  dollars  a  week." 

"  How  much  do  you  pay  for  your  car-fare  ?" 

"  At  least  sixty  cents  a  week." 

A  liberal  estimate  would  give  this  girl  a  margin  of  but  one 
dollar  and  forty  cents  after  sixty  hours'  work,  or  less  than 
twenty-five  cents  a  day. 

Many  of  the  places  in  which  the  poor  creatures  toil  are  unfit 
for  human  habitation.  They  are  adjacent  to,  or  surrounded  by, 
garbage  boxes,  festering  ponds  of  water,  or  masses  of  filth, 
g^iving  off  stenches  galore.  In  one  shop  there  was  a  rotten  and 
broken  flooring  through  which  penetrated  the  foul  odors  from  a 
stable. 

Many  of  the  workshops  are  poorly  lighted,  to  the  ruin  of  the 
eyesight  of  the  workers,  while  the  air  is  often  poisoned  from  lack 
of  ventilation.  The  girls  are  required  to  wash  in  dirty  water,  to 
dry  their  hands  on  their  underclothing,  and  to  wait  in  line  before 
crowded,  filthy  water-closets.  Neither  health  nor  self-respect  is 
possible  in  such  surroundings. 

The  department  store  is  the  great  modem  feeder  for  the 
brothel.  Long  hours,  hard  work,  poor  pay,  and  dressing  well 
under  compulsion, — these  things  do  not  make  for  virtue.  The 
proprietor  of  the  great  department  store  has  not  been  slow  to 
take  advantage  of  the  industrial  situation.  His  demand  that  his 
female  employees  dress  well  and  the  small  salary  that  he  pays 
are  the  mill-stones  between  which  the  virtue  of  many  primarily 
decent  women  is  ground  to  powder.  The  overworked,  underfed 
shop-girl  has  no  recreation,  no  luxuries,  and  scant  comforts. 
How  often  an  evening  at  the  theatre,  a  good  dinner,  and  a  bottle 
of  wine  weigh  heavily  in  the  balance  with  virtue  the  man  of  the 
world  knows.  The  way  seems  easy,  it  is  very  attractive,  and, 
once  she  has  learned  the  road,  all  she  has  to  do  is  to  increase  her 
price,  and  the  game  is  hers.  From  entertainment  to  mercenary 
demands  is  a  short  step.  As  her  income  swells,  she  grows  more 
luxurious  in  tastes.  The  occasional  "  tip"  of  sin  is  soon  insuffi- 
cient to  meet  her  demands.  First  comes  promiscuity,  then  the 
public  brothel  or  the  street. 

Some  phases  of  the  industrial  problem  are  especially  perti- 


SEXUAL   VICE   AND   CRIME  327 

nent  as  bearing  upon  prostitution.  The  instance  has  been  known 
where  women  appHcants  for  positions  in  large  stores  have  ob- 
jected to  the  salary  proposed,  and  have  been  politely  informed 
that  they  had  the  privilege  of  adding  to  their  incomes  in  the 
"  usual  way."  It  is  not  an  uncommon  experience  for  women 
applicants  for  positions  as  stenographers  to  be  informed  that 
their  employment  is  conditional,  depending  entirely  upon  their 
subservience  to  certain  demands  on  the  part  of  their  prospective 
employers. 

The  steadily  increasing  expense  of  matrimony  is  a  causal 
factor  of  prostitution  that  demands  most  serious  consideration. 
The  old  idea  that  two  persons,  plus  prospective  children,  can  live 
upon  an  income  which  barely  supports  one  has  been  pernicious  in 
its  influence.  Young  men  and  women  are  learning  the  fallacy  of 
the  old  notion,  and  are  chary  of  matrimonial  alliances.  When 
the  fallacy  of  matrimony  on  a  pittance  is  not  understood  and 
marriage  is  undertaken,  serious  trouble  sometimes  results.  The 
young  man  is  only  too  often  tempted  into  crime,  and  the  woman 
into  what  is  equally  bad. 

The  growing  prejudice  of  youth  against  manual  labor,  and  in 
favor  of  the  so-called  genteel  occupations,  is  a  deadly  and  in- 
sidious social  and  moral  poison.  The  young  man  born  of  indus- 
trious, hard-working  parents  scorns  his  father's  mechanical  or 
day-labor  occupation,  and  aspires  to  something  better.  He  has, 
perhaps,  a  smattering  of  education,  just  enough  to  stimulate  am- 
bitions that  he  can  never  gratify.  There  is  for  him  no  dignity  in 
honest  labor.  In  many  instances  his  chances  in  the  battle  of  life 
are  much  less  than  his  father's,  whose  occupation,  while  less 
genteel,  is  more  productive.  The  daughter  of  the  proletarian 
yearns  for  the  shop  and  store,  with  their  temptations  and  starva- 
tion wages.  She,  too,  has  ambitions  that  are  the  unhealthful 
product  of  her  environment.  These  ambitions  she  can  never 
gratify  legitimately ;  where  they  often  lead  every  sociologist 
knows.  She  spurns  domestic  service  and  abhors  matrimony  in 
her  own  sphere.  The  males  of  the  sphere  above  her  are  not  slow 
to  take  advantage  of  her  ambitions,  but  not  in  a  way  conducive 
to  her  best  interests  in  the  battle  of  life. 


328  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

The  rise  and  fall  of  prostitution  in  correspondence  with  the 
ups  and  downs  of  commercial  and  financial  interests  is  so  evident 
that  it  scarcely  deserves  mention.  As  a  broad  general  proposi- 
tion, it  may  be  stated  that  the  proportion  of  prostitutes  in  any 
given  community  is  inversely  to  the  degree  of  general  prosperity. 
The  proportion  of  prostitutes  in  a  given  community  fluctuates 
with  the  cost  of  living.  Prostitution  follows  in  the  wake  of  great 
wars,  famines,  prolonged  strikes,  and  panics  as  persistently  as  a 
bloodhound  follows  a  fresh  trail.  Poverty  and  prostitution  are 
close  friends. 

EARLY  BEGINNINGS 

A  large  number  of  prostitutes  have  been  trained  to  the  life 
from  childhood.  Foundlings,  orphans,  and  the  children  of 
poverty-stricken  or  vicious  parents  often  have  no  chance  for  a 
moral  life  from  the  very  beginning.  They  grow  up  vicious,  im- 
moral, mentally  undisciplined,  and  physically  unclean.  They  fall 
long  before  maturity  in  most  cases,  and  rarely  rise  again.  This 
class  exists  everywhere,  but  is  most  numerous  in  Europe.  Or- 
ganized societies  for  debauching  young  girls  have  existed,  and 
doubtless  still  exist.  The  revelations  of  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette  in 
1886  showed  this  fact  in  all  its  hideousness.  Lombroso  relates 
a  case  of  a  woman  in  Paris  who  made  her  living  as  a  procuress 
of  young  girls  on  commission.^ 

It  is  very  probable  that  by  far  the  larger  proportion  of  pros- 
titutes begin  their  lives  of  shame  before  they  have  attained  their 
majority.  Le  Pileur  secured  authentic  information  in  one  thou- 
sand cases,  and  found  that  seven  hundred  and  fifty-eight  became 
prostitutes  before  their  twenty-first  year,  and  one  hundred  and 
nine  before  their  sixteenth  year.*  Waifs  and  unprotected  chil- 
dren have  no  rights  which  vicious  men  consider  themselves 
bound  to  respect.  I  recall  that  some  years  ago  there  was  a  large 
number  of  newsgirls  plying  their  trade  in  the  vicinity  of  Chi- 
cago's greatest  business  corner.  These  children  varied  from  six 
or  seven  to  fifteen  years  of  age.    Within  a  few  months  every  one 

'  The  Female  Offender,  Translated  by  Morrison. 
*  Conference  Int.,  Brussels,  1899. 


SEXUAL   VICE    AND    CRIME  329 

of  them  became  syphilized.  The  resulting  endemic  of  syphilis 
among  the  employees  of  the  neighboring  offices  and  business 
houses  was  finally  brought  to  the  attention  of  the  police,  and  the 
newsgirl  as  an  institution  became  a  thing  of  the  past.  No  effort, 
of  course,  was  made  to  prevent  the  children's  contamination 
originally,  and  no  inquiry  was  made  as  to  their  subsequent  fate. 
Some  of  them  afterwards  entered  brothels.  No  one  was  ever 
punished  for  their  debauchment.  They  were  treated  as  though 
they  had  wilfully  debauched  and  infected  themselves. 

The  aged  and  middle-aged  professional  roue  is  more  often 
responsible  for  the  debauchery  of  young  girls  than  is  the  thought- 
less or  depraved  youth.  Satiety  breeds  a  demand  for  novelties. 
In  every  large  city  in  this  country  men  of  advanced  years  are  to 
be  found  whose  all-absorbing  passion  is  the  quest  of  victims 
among  young  and  innocent  girls — mere  children,  indeed.  Any 
one  who  gets  the  confidence  of  the  crossing  policeman  on  any 
down-town  corner  can  get  information  on  this  subject.  A  hos- 
pital patient,  a  keeper  of  a  house  of  accommodation  for  "  tran- 
sients," told  the  resident  surgeon  that  a  certain  elderly  business 
man  had  brought  no  less  than  fourteen  girls  to  her  house  in  the 
course  of  a  month,  none  of  whom  were  over  seventeen  years  of 
age.  The  quest  of  young  victims  is  often  a  mania  with  such 
men.  They  are  the  victims  of  a  psycho-sexual  anesthesia,  the 
result  of  exhaustion  of  sensibility  from  over-indulgence.  Nov- 
elty alone  serves  to  titillate  the  sexual  cerebral  area  of  such 
debauchees. 

ALCOHOLICS 

Indulgence  in  alcoholics  is  the  open  sesame  to  many  a 
woman's  virtue.  Intoxicants  are  dangerous  enough  to  men  ;  to 
women  they  are  especially  disastrous.  The  virtue  of  the  woman 
with  the  drink  habit  is  always  in  danger.  If  she  escapes  falling, 
it  is  by  virtue  of  good  luck  rather  than  good  judgment.  What 
might  safely  be  considered  moderate  indulgence  in  man  is  de- 
cidedly immoderate  in  woman.  It  would  appear  that  the  in- 
creasing consumption  of  alcoholics  by  women,  associated  with 
the  undoubted  increase  of  neuropathic  conditions  among  them,  is 


330  THE   DISEASES   OF   SOCIETY 

tending  towards  a  lowering  of  the  average  moral  plane  of  femi- 
ninity in  our  large  cities.  That  the  effect  of  alcohol  upon 
woman's  will-power  and  sense  of  moral  responsibility  is  well 
known  and  utilized  by  the  roue  will  hardly  be  disputed. 

The  lack  of  moral  balance,  and  defective  will,  produced  in  the 
female  by  alcoholics  are  even  more  marked  than  in  the  male. 
Her  emotional  organization  being  more  susceptible  than  that  of 
the  opposite  sex,  the  special  danger  of  the  alcohol  habit  to 
woman  is  readily  understood.  The  relation  of  an  uncontrollable 
appetite  for  liquor  in  woman  to  the  sale  of  her  person  for  the 
purpose  of  securing  money  with  which  to  purchase  the  desired 
stimulant  has  been  expatiated  upon  elsewhere. 

VICIOUS   TRAINING    AND    IGNORANCE   OF   YOUTH 

Vicious  and  illogical  training  of  youth  is  one  of  the  feeders 
of  prostitution.  Boys  are  taught  by  older  men  that  fornication 
is  manly,  even  that  it  is  necessary.  Such  training,  associated 
with  ignorance  of  sexual  physiology  and  the  ebullition  of  un- 
disciplined sexual  impulses  at  the  age  of  puberty,  is  most  dis- 
astrous in  results.  The  Lie  of  the  Wild  Oats  is  the  reef  on  which 
many  a  youth's  life  has  been  wrecked.  The  belief  is  quite  general 
that  every  youth  of  stamina  "  must  sow  his  wild  oats."  Some 
go  so  far  as  to  say  that  he  cannot  amount  to  anything  unless  he 
does  sow  more  or  less  of  them.  Many  women  have  been  heard 
to  say  that  penitent  roues  make  the  best  husbands,  not  recog- 
nizing the  fact  that  where  one  man  is  strong  enough  to  over- 
come his  evil  experiences,  a  hundred  are  wrecked,  morally  and 
physically. 

That  the  average  young  man  sows  wild  oats  in  the  present 
conditions  of  society  is  indisputable.  That  the  more  substantial 
and  manly  men  are  often  the  ones  who  have  paid  particular  atten- 
tion to  their  sowing  is  true.  That  some  men  who  never  sowed 
any  were  not  much  to  begin  with  is  also  true.  If  fear,  or  lack 
of  animality,  had  not  been  more  prominent  in  such  men  than  in 
their  erring  brothers  they  would  have  joined  their  ranks.  That 
some  "  goody-goody"  young  men,  who  have  never  been  tempted, 
fall  into  evil  ways  later  in  life  cannot  be  denied.    That  penitents 


SEXUAL   VICE   AND   CRIME  331 

often  make  good  husbands  is  a  matter  of  common  observation ; 
whether  they  have  been  scared  into  good  behavior  or  have  simply 
matured  in  judgment  matters  not.  On  the  other  hand,  many 
young  men  who  might  have  been  ornaments  to  society  have  been 
ruined  for  Hfe  by  wild  oat  sowing.  That  any  man  is  better  for 
wild  oat  sowing,  save  where  its  terrible  results  bring  a  naturally 
weak  and  vacillating  character  to  his  senses  through  psychic 
shock,  is  false.  "  Boys  will  be  boys,"  they  say.  Oh,  yes,  dogs 
will  be  dogs;  but  does  this  lessen  the  virulency  of  hydropho- 
bia? The  wild  oats  theory  was  probably  invented  by  a  fake 
social  philosopher,  who  had  sins  of  his  own  to  apologize  for 
and  no  diseases  acquired  by  early  indiscretions  to  modify  his 
opinions. 

Almost  every  boy  at  some  time  in  his  life  is  taught  by  his 
elders  the  Lie  of  the  Wild  Oats.  His  father  and  grandfather 
learned  it  before  him,  and  followed  where  it  led.  The  man  who 
escapes  its  dangers  does  so  by  great  good  luck,  or  by  virtue  of  a 
strong  organization,  moral,  mental,  and  physical,  that  nothing  can 
shake.  That  any  man  who  sows  can  altogether  escape  reaping  is 
a  fallacy.  Physical,  mental,  or  moral  scars  remain,  and  while  the 
world  may  be  satisfied  with  him,  he  is  never  satisfied  with  him- 
self. Man's  sexual  lapses  in  after-life  are  often  due  to  his 
chasing  some  psychic  will-o'-the-wisp  ;  some  youthful  experience 
which,  like  the  circus  of  his  boyhood,  seems  ideal.  Impressions 
made  upon  the  hyperesthetic  psycho-sexual  centres  of  youth 
at  a  period  when  its  emotional  organization  is  especially  im- 
pressionable leave  a  memory  that  overshadows  all  its  future  life 
as  a  false  ideal.  The  grown  man  may  not  know  it,  but  his  pursuit 
of  sexual  pleasure,  that  is  always  just  beyond  his  grasp,  is  an 
unconscious  chase  for  an  ideal  that  no  longer  exists.  His  erotic 
desires  are  a  reflex  from  a  psychic  scar  that  will  never  fade  nor 
become  dulled  in  sensitiveness  so  long  as  his  physical  sexual 
capacity  remains  unimpaired. 

Shall  youth  be  exposed  to  debauchery  to  strengthen  it  ?  No, 
a  thousand  times  no.  Protect  youth  from  wild  oats  influences 
until  its  judgment  is  mature,  and  there  will  not  be  so  many 
brands  to  be  plucked  from  the  burning.     Inasmuch  as  women 


332  THE    DISEASES    OE   SOCIETY 

have  written  themselves  into  the  wild-oat  conception  of  the 
male  ideal,  here  are  a  few  pictures  for  them — pictures  only  too 
familiar. 

Picture  I. — A  certain  health  resort — the  sink-hole  into  which 
a  large  part  of  the  immorality,  crime,  and  disease  of  America 
is  dumped — has  a  hundred  thousand  visitors  annually.  Of 
these,  a  large  proportion  go  there  to  harvest  their  wild  oats 
crop.  Visit  one  of  the  government  "  rale  holes,"  defender  of 
the  wild  oats,  and  tell  me  how  you  like  the  harvest. 

Picture  2. — A  hospital.  Here  is  a  group  of  locomotor 
ataxics ;  there  a  group  of  deformed  children ;  yonder,  a  girl  in 
her  teens  is  nursing  a  child  who  is  not  wise,  for  it  knoweth  not 
and  ne'er  will  know  its  father.    More  wild  oats. 

Picture  J. — An  asylum.  Here  is  a  case  of  general  paresis; 
there  a  melancholiac ;  in  the  next  room  a  maniac  can  be  heard 
shrieking.    Wild  oats  a-plenty. 

Picture  4. — A  police  court,  full  of  drunks,  criminals,  and 
bums.    Wild  oats  again. 

Picture  5. — A  jail.  Here  are  wild  oats  of  the  striped,  short- 
haired  variety  in  abundance. 

Picture  6. — A  foundling  asylum  full  of  children,  cursed  be- 
fore they  were  born  by  society's  cruel  term,  "  bastard."  Poor 
little  wild  oats. 

Picture  y. — A  doctor's  office,  full  of  anxious  men,  and  still 
more  anxious  women,  who  do  not  gossip  much  about  their  ail- 
ments, even  among  their  intimates,  save  where  the  women  are 
told  by  the  doctor  a  euphonious  fairy-tale  for  home  use.  Wild 
oats  growing  in  the  dark. 

Picture  8. — A  brothel.  Around  the  "  reception"  room  sits  a 
collection  of  poor  devils,  many  of  whom  were  originally  sacri- 
ficed in  aiding  our  youth  to  sow  its  wild  oats.  They  are  now 
getting  poetic  revenge,  as  the  doctor  knows. 

Picture  p. — A  beautiful  girl  was  found  dead  in  the  river  one 
fine  morning.  What  was  she  doing  there?  Washing  the  wild 
oats  out  of  her  life. 

Picture  10. — A  pistol-shot  rings  out  in  a  gambling-hell — a 
man  falls  dead.    The  gun  was  loaded  with  wild  oats. 


SEXUAL   VICE   AND    CRIME  333 

Picture  11. — A  bank  cashier  flees  to  Canada;  he  is  looking 
for  a  market  for  his  wild  oats. 

Picture  12. — A  series  of  deserted  babies  are  found  in  the 
snow.  Who  planted  them  there?  Will  wild  oats  grow  in  the 
snow? 

Picture  13. — A  wife,  surrounded  by  hungry  children,  is 
sitting  weeping — eating  her  heart  out.  John  is  on  a  drunk ;  he 
has  whipped  her,  is  in  jail,  or  has  deserted  her.  Wild  oats  are 
not  a  poultice  for  a  broken  heart ;  they  are  poor  food  for  babies  ; 
they  do  not  buy  coal,  nor  cover  nakedness. 

We  doctors  know  the  wild  oats  crop  under  numerous  terms. 
Crime,  inebriety,  syphilis,  paresis,  locomotor  ataxia,  and  gonor- 
rhea are  chief  among  them.  What  the  consultation-room  does 
not  tell  us  the  operating-table  does.  The  woman  who  prefers 
the  graduate  of  the  wild  oats  college  would  better  look  at  the 
pathologic  specimens  taken  from  innocent  wives,  and  see  how 
they  tally  with  the  wild  oats  of  some  husbands'  youth. 

There  are  thousands  of  syphilitics  and  tens  of  thousands  of 
gonorrheics  in  every  large  city  in  the  world.  Add  to  these  the 
other  wild  oats  products,  crime,  prostitution,  inebriety,  and  in- 
sanity,— all  the  conditions  of  degeneracy, — and  we  can  never  off- 
set the  frightful  record  with  an  occasional  brand  plucked  from 
the  burning,  or  "  burnt  child  who  dreads  the  fire." 

The  Lie  of  the  Wild  Oats  is  based  upon  the  misapplication 
of  the  theory  of  a  separate  standard  for  men  and  women.  The 
young  man  may  sow  his  wild  oats,  but  the  young  woman,  must 
not.  As  the  sowing  of  wild  oats  by  the  one  necessitates  the  co- 
operation of  the  other,  I  cannot  precisely  follow  this  line  of 
reasoning.  What  made  the  thousands  of  prostitutes  in  every 
great  city  ?  What  supports  them  ?  What  keeps  the  supply  equal 
to  the  demand?  Wild  oats,  good  friend,  wild  oats.  Wherever 
immorality,  vice,  disease,  crime,  drunkenness,  and  insanity  most 
thrive,  there,  if  we  dig  down  to  the  very  root  of  these  evils,  we 
find  wild  oats  the  thickest. 

Let  the  gray-beards  who  learned  the  wild  oats  lie  from 
society's  primer  speak.  Are  not  the  wild  oats  of  yesterday 
watered  with  the  tears  of  to-day  ?    Do  not  their  vicious  roots  lie 


334 


THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 


deep  in  the  ashes  of  despair?    Are  they  not  garnered  with  the 
sickle  of  regret  and  threshed  with  the  flail  of  disease  and  pain  ? 

SEDUCTION 

Seduction  as  a  cause  of  prostitution  has  always  been  assigned 
the  first  position  by  moralists.  I  am  not  prepared  to  so  accept  it 
off-hand  and  without  question,  nor  am  I  disposed  to  ignore  it  as 
some  sociologists  do.  The  chaplain  of  the  Millbank  Prison,  in 
England,  has  often  been  quoted  as  having  found  only  eight 
hundred  out  of  sixteen  thousand  prostitutes,  in  whom  seduction 
could  be  assigned  as  a  cause.  These  statistics  are  very  mislead- 
ing,— first,  because  they  bear  only  upon  prostitution  in  England, 
among  the  lowest  class  and  in  London  almost  exclusively,  and 
secondly,  because  the  influences  that  directly  drive  women  to  the 
street  or  brothel  would  be  inoperative  in  many  cases  had  the 
woman  not  already  lost  her  virtue.  Virtue  once  lost,  it  may  be 
readily  understood  that  the  one  great  barrier  to  a  life  of  shame 
has  been  swept  away.  As  already  stated,  society's  ostracism  of 
the  "  first  offender"  has  had  much  to  do  with  this.  Inasmuch  as 
society  has  sentenced  her,  the  woman  often  sees  nothing  but  the 
brothel  ahead.  She  is  much  like  the  man  who  has  been  caught 
in  a  petty  theft,  and  at  whom  every  man's  finger  is  pointed. 
Quoth  he,  "  I  have  the  name,  why  not  the  game  ?"  Oftentimes 
the  "  Honor  lost,  all  is  lost"  dogma  is  seized  upon  with  avidity 
by  the  natural-born  prostitute  as  an  excuse  for  adopting  a  life  of 
shame,  although  her  fault  is  not  known.  This  point  must  be 
taken  into  consideration.  While  in  the  majority  of  cases  the 
man  is  at  fault,  there  is  a  certain  class  of  women  whose  seduc- 
tion is  a  literal  impossibility.  There  may  be  a  first  offence,  but 
a  seduction,  never.  This  class  of  women  comprises  a  certain 
proportion  of  the  prostitute  class.  They  are  typic  degenerates, 
moral  or  physical,  or  both ;  some  are  nymphomaniacs.  The 
term  "  ruined,"  as  a  valid  excuse  for  such  women's  lives,  is 
fallacious,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  thousands  of  women  who  have 
been  seduced  have  never  entered  brothels  or  become  clandestine 
prostitutes.  They  made  a  misstep,  it  is  true,  but  were  primarily 
and  innately  virtuous.    The  woman  who  is  found  out  is  the  only 


SEXUAL   VICE   AND    CRIME  335 

one  who  has  even  a  social  excuse  for  a  life  of  prostitution.  She 
may  or  may  not  be  a  degenerate. 

Seduction  under  promise  of  marriage,  without  its  consumma- 
tion, is  comparatively  exceptional.  In  most  cases,  probably,  the 
woman  falls  from  grace  without  a  word  having  been  said  about 
matrimony  on  either  side.  Matrimony  is  here  the  woman's  after- 
thought. Sometimes  it  is  not  thought  of  at  all  on  either  side,  or 
at  least  not  until  the  woman  discovers  that  she  is  enceinte.  That 
young  lads  are  often  seduced  by  lewd  women  is  a  matter  of 
common  observation ;  so  common,  indeed,  that  an  "  age  of  con- 
sent" should  be  universally  established  for  the  male  as  well  as 
for  the  female. 

The  situation  may  be  summed  up  in  this  wise : 

1.  Seduction  is  responsible  for  the  primary  fall  from  virtue 
of  most  prostitutes. 

2.  There  is  a  numerous  class  in  which  the  woman  is  more 
than  compliant,  and  perhaps  seeks  danger,  or  even  enacts  the 
active  role  in  the  so-called  seduction.  This  class  of  women  com- 
prises the  degenerates.  The  victims  of  nymphomania  from  ner- 
vous or  sexual  disease  and  most  of  the  low-class  prostitutes  come 
under  this  head. 

3.  Necessity  impels  many  women  to  prostitution.  It  operates 
with  special  stress  upon  women  who  have  already  fallen,  who 
are  prone  to  exaggerate  their  necessities  in  the  face  of  the 
temptation  to  lead  an  easy  and  luxurious  life. 

4.  Prostitutes  often  adopt  the  life  from  choice,  and  remain 
in  it  from  choice.  The  average  clandestine  prostitute  is  such  as 
a  matter  of  volition.  The  clandestine  prostitute  who,  under  the 
cloak  of  respectability,  taints  middle  and  upper  tendom  is  a 
typic  harlot,  as  a  rule,  who  is  to  the  manner  born. 

ATTITUDE   OF   THE    PROSTITUTE   TOWARDS    HER   OCCUPATION 

The  point  of  view  of  the  sociologist  depends  largely  upon 
the  class  of  women  among  whom  he  makes  his  investigation. 
Inquiry  among  high-class  and  low-class  prostitutes  develops 
widely  varying  results.  As  a  rule,  the  high-toned  woman  of 
the  town  frankly  acknowledges  that  she  prefers  the  life  she 


336  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

leads  to  any  other.  When  she  makes  complaint,  it  is  from  some 
ulterior  motive,  or  possibly  it  is  a  case  of  "  sick  saint,  well  devil." 
If  she  is  sick  or  rapidly  losing  her  beauty,  her  penitence  may  be 
extreme,  especially  if  she  is  under  the  questioning  of  a  social 
reformer  whom  she  desires  to  hoodwink.  In  many  cases  the 
woman  is  attractive  enough  to  enable  her  to  marry  and  live  a 
respectable  life  away  from  the  scene  of  her  shame,  if  she  would. 

A  public  woman  of  the  higher  class  was  once  asked,  "  What 
will  you  do  wheri  your  beauty  begins  to  fade?"  "  Oh,"  she  re- 
plied, "  I'll  go  back  to  the  little  country  town  where  I  used  to 
live,  marry  some  jay,  and  settle  down.  Nobody  knows  where  I 
am,  or  what  I'm  doing.    That's  the  way  lots  of  us  do." 

Strange  to  say,  like  the  male  penitent,  some  of  these  women 
who  "  settle  down"  become  unassailable  models  of  domestic 
virtue. 

Inquiry  among  the  diseased,  inebriated,  poverty-stricken, 
lower-class  prostitutes  discloses  a  different  state  of  affairs. 
They  usually  express  penitence,  unless  lost  to  all  knowledge  of 
what  the  term  implies.  In  most  instances  they  would  really  like 
to  do  better,  from  the  stand-point  of  physical  comfort,  but  their 
ability  to  reform  is  a  delusion  of  the  reformer's  mind.  I  have 
seen  the  experiment  of  reformation  tried  time  and  again,  but 
have  never  known  a  success  among  this  class. 

In  brief,  the  high-class  courtesan  rarely  wishes  to  reform, 
so  long  as  she  is  in  demand.  In  most  cases  she  could  not  if  she 
so  desired.  The  middle  and  lower-class  prostitute,  as  a  rule, 
cannot  be  reformed,  although  she  often  expresses  a  wish  to  be. 
Harsh  opinion  this,  but  twenty-five  years'  observation  in  and 
out  of  public  institutions  has  convinced  me  that  it  is  the  truth. 
Not  that  I  would  discourage  the  reformer.  Let  him  go  on  in  his 
noble  work,  and  save  what  souls  he  may.  He  will  never  affect 
the  proportion  of  prostitutes  in  our  social  system  one  way  or  the 
other,  perhaps,  but  if  he  wins  an  occasional  individual  victory, 
all  praise  be  to  him.  That  proper  religious,  moral,  and  educa- 
tional influences  brought  to  bear  upon  both  men  and  women 
have  a  repressive  influence  is  admitted.  This  is  not  the  first 
instance  where  means  which  are  to  a  certain  extent  preventive 


SEXUAL    VICE    AND    CRIME  337 

are  a  failure  as  a  curative  method.  The  proportion  of  prosti- 
tutes in  our  social  system  has  not  varied  under  the  repressive 
attempts  of  the  moralist,  but  he  who  claims  that  religious  and 
moral  teaching  and  example  have  not  a  powerful  restraining 
influence  on  woman,  and  that  they  do  not  pluck  an  occasional 
brand  from  the  burning,  is  too  bigoted  and  narrow-minded  to 
justify  quoting  in  testimony.  That  such  training  cannot  alone 
successfully  cope  with  the  question  is  not  open  to  argument. 

SPECIAL    FACTORS 

One  of  the  most  important  phases  of  the  commercial  problem 
in  its  relations  to  prostitution  is  the  only  too  frequent  custom 
among  merchants  of  entertaining  their  out-of-town  customers 
— or  having  them  entertained — by  showing  them  "  the  sights," 
including  the  round  of  the  various  brothels.  The  country  cus- 
tomer is  not  always  an  available  excuse.  Many  a  prosperous 
man  in  our  great  cities  considers  buying  wine  for  harlots  the 
ideal  of  a  good  time.  It  is  a  pitiable,  yet  absolute,  fact  that 
some  of  the  better-class  brothels  of  our  large  cities  are  supported, 
not  by  young  men  who  resort  to  them  for  the  purpose  of  alleged 
necessary  gratification,  or  even  for  the  satisfaction  of  innate 
depravity,  but  by  men  of  wealth,  social  position,  and  family 
who  have  no  possible  excuse  for  patronizing  them.  It  is  true 
that  in  some  instances  the  brothel  is  merely  an  incident  in  a 
general  "  good  time ;"  it  is  true  that  many  men  who  spend 
enormous  sums  for  wine  to  be  drunk  by  harlots  go  no  further, 
but  the  fact  remains  that  such  men  help  to  support  the  brothels. 

A  certain  part  of  the  responsibility  for  prostitution  and  its 
attendant  evils  must  be  laid  at  the  door  of  the  physician. 
Reputable  medical  men  have  ever  been  remiss  in  their  duties 
to  the  public,  so  far  as  instructing  it  in  sexual  matters  is  con- 
cerned. Such  information  as  youth  obtains  it  gets  from  the 
quack.  This  is  often  pernicious,  but  not  an  unmixed  evil.  Many 
a  boy  has  received  his  first  warning  from  quack  literature,  or 
quack  museums.  The  reputable  physician  who  should  write  a 
book  upon  sexual  matters  for  popular  reading  would  imme- 
diately be  swooped  down  upon  by  that  stench  in  the  nostrils 

22 


338  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

of  broad-minded  men, — the  Multitudinous  Medico-Ethical  Ass, 
whose  raucous  voice  and  flamboyant  ears  are  always  in 
evidence. 

The  special  temptations,  allurements,  and  financial  necessities 
of  city  life  are  important  causal  factors  in  prostitution  and 
crime.  The  young  woman  who  is  desirous  of  self-support  has 
her  laudable  ambition  antidoted  by  the  gayety  of  dress  of  the 
women  about  her,  and  the  high  fixed  charges  of  living.  The 
young  man  is  corrupted  by  the  immoral  atmosphere  of  the  city, 
and  subjected  to  demands  upon  his  pocket  far  beyond  his  earn- 
ing capacity.  Marriage  and  the  home  are  beyond  his  wildest 
hopes.  Imbued  with  the  false  and,  to  him,  welcome  notion  that 
his  life  must  have  a  physio-sexual  side,  he  takes  the  usual  road 
to  the  wild  oats  field  and  becomes  a  debauchee  or  defaulter, 
or  both. 

I  am  by  no  means  exploiting  communities  of  lesser  magni- 
tude as  paragons  of  virtue.  Many  small  towns  are  hot-beds 
of  clandestine  sexual  vice.  A  large  proportion  of  country  re- 
cruits for  the  brothel  were  first  debauched  at  home,  not  neces- 
sarily by  home  talent,  for  the  small  town  is  a  fertile  field  for  the 
"  Knight  of  the  Road," — the  commercial  drummer,  upon  whose 
hands  time  is  often  heavy  and  who  sometimes  kills  it  by  brows- 
ing in  forbidden  fields.  What  I  have  said  bears  particularly 
upon  open  prostitution.  When  the  debauchery  of  women  in 
small  towns  results  from  cosmopolitan  agencies,  the  immoral 
atmosphere  of  the  metropolis  must  bear  the  blame.  In  general, 
the  town  "  conscience"  is  keener  than  the  city  conscience,  be- 
cause opportunities  for  concealment  are  less,  and  sexuality- 
fostering  influences — i.e.,  features  of  environment  that  excite 
psycho-sexual  erethism — are  not  so  abundant  and  potent  as  in 
gjeat  cities.  Human  nature  is  fundamentally  in  no  wise  diflfer- 
ent  in  small  communities,  but  the  inhibition  of  fear  of  detection 
is  greater.  The  gentleman  who  passes  the  hat  in  the  little  white 
church  at  the  "  Corners,"  often  "  cuts  loose"  when  he  visits  the 
city,  in  a  manner  surprising  to  all  but  the  police,  who  are  famil- 
iar with  his  breed.  An  occasional  demure  little  country  milliner 
or  dress-maker,  who  makes  periodic  visits  to  the  metropolis  to 


SEXUAL   VICE   AND    CRIME  339 

replenish  stock,  has  been  known  to  don  and  shed  city  ways  as 
facilely  as  a  Hghtning-change  artist  does  his  costume. 

The  physician  is,  of  all  men,  the  best  situated,  so  far  as  col- 
lecting data  and  forming  logical  conclusions  as  to  prevention 
and  cure  of  the  social  evil  are  concerned.  His  influence  in  the 
matter  of  repression  and  regulation  is  most  powerful  when  he 
chooses  to  exert  it.  The  medical  profession  has  sometimes  been 
accused  of  aiding  and  abetting  prostitution  by  advising  fornica- 
tion. That  occasional  ignoramuses  and  moral  perverts  may 
take  this  method  of  concealing  their  ignorance  is  true.  That  the 
medical  profession  as  a  whole  does  other  than  discountenance 
fornication  is  false.  It  must  be  remembered  in  this  connection 
that  the  physician  is  confronted  with  two  classes  of  males, — 
viz.,  (a)  hitherto  virtuous  men  or  boys;  and  (&)  those  to 
whom  virtue  is  a  term  the  meaning  of  which  has  long  since  been 
forgotten.  In  the  one  instance  he  can  often  prevent  wild  oat 
sowing,  while  in  the  other  he  is  usually  compelled  to  accept  con- 
ditions as  they  are,  and  offer  advice  based  upon  the  knowledge 
that  nothing  will  deter  the  patient  from  his  usual  habits. 

There  is  one  point  in  which  it  must  be  confessed  the  physi- 
cian is  often  at  fault.  It  is  not  infrequently  the  case  that  he  is 
consulted  by  broken-down,  perhaps  diseased,  roues,  for  whom 
he  prescribes  matrimony.  This  is  most  reprehensible.  The 
prescribing  of  virgins  for  "  maimed  debauchees"  is  an  unmiti- 
gated crime.  It  is  a  sacrifice  of  innocents  upon  Hymen's  altar 
that  cannot  be  too  severely  condemned.  Pure  women  should  not 
be  considered  as  remedial  agents,  to  be  prescribed  in  the  interests 
of  the  consumer.  The  crippled  roue  who  asks  the  physician  to 
repair  his  bodily  disasters  in  order  that  he  may  "  marry  some 
nice  girl  and  settle  down,"  is  a  frequent  picture,  and  a  sight  for 
gods  and  men. 

The  young  girl's  ignorance  of  the  world  and  its  ways,  and 
of  male  character  especially,  bears  a  most  important  relation  to 
prostitution.  She  knows  still  less  of  sexual  physiology  than  of 
the  other  things  necessary  to  put  her  upon  the  defensive.  To 
be  fond  of  admiration  is  a  weakness  of  the  sex,  and  where  this 
fondness  is  inordinately  developed,  the  young  girl's  ignorance 


340  THE   DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

is  likely  to  lead  her  into  danger.  She  is  susceptible  to  flattery, 
and  often  only  too  ready  to  listen  to  almost  any  argument,  pro- 
viding it  revolves  around  an  exalted  appreciation  of  her  physical 
and  intellectual  attractions.  The  expert  woman-hunter  has  little 
difficulty  in  ascertaining  the  inexperienced  young  woman's  spe- 
cial weakness.  Her  betrayal  after  its  discovery  is  frequently  a 
mere  following  along  the  lines  of  least  resistance.  After  the 
first  misstep,  resistance  to  further  indiscretions  is  more  fanciful 
than  real.  Gilded  vice  is  often  very  attractive  to  the  girl  who 
feels  that  she  no  longer  has  anything  to  lose.  The  weak  mind 
sees  a  glamour  about  a  life  of  immorality  that  is  a  veritable 
magnet  to  draw  it  down  from  the  conventional  plane. 

A  frequent  element  in  the  causation  of  sexual  immorality  in 
women  is  the  malign  influence  of  woman  herself.  The  sexual 
curiosity  of  young  girls  is  often  excited  by  the  conversation  of 
older  and  more  experienced  women.  It  is  nothing  unusual  for 
women  to  tell  vulgar  stories,  or  discuss  marital  experiences,  in 
the  presence  of  younger  and  inexperienced  women.  This 
penchant  of  the  semi-occasional  ostensibly  decent  woman  is  not 
generally  recognized,  but  nevertheless  exists  where  it  should 
be  least  expected. 

What  has  been  said  of  the  degrading  influence  of  some  adults 
upon  the  young,  bears  with  especial  force  upon  the  male  sex,  in 
whom  evil  association  and  example  are  necessarily  more  fre- 
quent than  in  the  female.  Ignorance  and  lack  of  control  of 
sexual  physiology  in  the  male,  combined  with  evil  individual  and 
social  influences  are  the  well-spring  of  the  social  evil. 

Close  intimacies  between  young  persons  of  either  sex  are 
dangerous.  The  libidinous  adult  who  trains  boys  in  vice  is 
found  in  every  community,  quite  as  likely  as  not  teaching  the 
boys  that  masturbation  is  a  manly  thing,  and  possibly  that  in- 
dulgence in  some  form  of  sexual  vice  is  necessary  to  good  health. 
A  father  has  even  been  known  to  take  his  young  son  to  a  brothel, 
to  "  make  a  man  of  him." 

A  special  feature  of  female  depravity  is  the  mania  that  the 
bad  woman  has  for  dragging  the  decent  one  down  to  her  own 
level.    She  resents  morality  in  other  women.    There  is  no  surer 


SEXUAL   VICE   AND   CRIME  341 

way  to  accomplish  the  prostitution  of  women  than  through  the 
agency  of  woman.  The  immoral  woman  will  set  traps  for  a 
pure  one,  and  catch  her  sooner  or  later.  Strange  to  say,  it  is  the 
clandestine  prostitute  of  polite  society  who  is  most  dangerous  to 
the  pure.  The  public  prostitute  of  the  higher  class  usually 
draws  a  hard  and  fast  line  between  herself  and  decent  women, 
and  does  all  she  can  to  prevent  them  entering  upon  lives  of 
shame.  Whether  "  professional"  jealousy  has  anything  to  do 
with  this  or  not,  I  cannot  say,  but  the  fact  remains. 

It  is  not  always  the  unintellectual  woman  who  grovels.  The 
intellectual  woman  less  often  descends  from  her  pedestal  than 
does  she  of  coarser-grained  mentality,  for  the  reason  that  she  is 
often  masculine  in  type,  but  when  she  is  distinctly  feminine, 
and  once  begins  a  life  of  shame,  she  takes  to  it  with  astonishing 
avidity.  She  may  fall  in  the  first  instance,  not  through  im- 
morality, but  through  the  power  of  a  great  love.  While  this 
lasts  she  is  safe.  Her  love  serves  as  an  inhibition.  As  soon, 
however,  as  it  is  removed,  she  often  succumbs  to  every  tempta- 
tion that  is  thrown  in  her  way.  She  may  be  naturally  high- 
principled,  but  is  weak-willed,  and  once  her  chief  purpose  in  life 
— loyalty  to  an  overmastering  love — is  dissipated,  she  throws  all 
restraint  to  the  winds,  and  either  joins  the  great  army  of  clan- 
destine prostitutes  or  enters  the  brothel.  Instability  of  nervous 
equilibrium  is  inseparable  from  such  a  woman's  highly  developed 
intellectuality.  Temporarily,  it  is  governed  or  checked  by  genu- 
ine affection,  but  when  she  ceases  to  love,  and  control  is  removed, 
absolute  moral  degeneracy  results.  Once  her  downward  career 
begins,  she  throws  decency  to  the  winds,  and  not  all  the  love 
and  kindness  in  the  world  could  check  her.  The  weak  woman 
who  marries  is  safe  while  love  lasts — no  longer. 

Some  of  the  factors  of  environment  afforded  by  modern 
social  conditions  are  very  demoralizing  to  youth,  especially  from 
a  psycho-sexual  stand-point.  Literature,  both  ancient  and  mod- 
ern, sacred  and  profane,  has  played  a  large  part  in  inculcating 
immorality.  To  the  trained,  disciplined  mind,  no  literature  is 
injurious;  but  to  the  inexperienced  mind  of  youth,  with  its  tur- 
moil of  conflicting  psycho-sexual  emotions,  the  perusal  of  some 


342  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

of  it  is  pernicious.  Suggestion  is  recognized  as  a  powerful 
factor  in  psychology,  and  should  be  given  due  weight  in  connec- 
tion with  the  subject  under  consideration. 

The  modern  school  of  realism  is  responsible  for  such  moral 
wreckage.  Realism  as  such  is  not  objectionable,  but  the  literary 
realism  that  makes  the  heroine  drag  her  bath-tub  into  the  parlor 
and  perform  her  ablutions  before  company  is  indefensible.  Real- 
ism is  only  too  often  a  cloak  from  beneath  which  the  intrinsically 
depraved  mind  of  the  author  may  cater  to  the  innate  depravity 
of  human  nature  in  general.  Realism  assumes  that  there  can 
be  nothing  offensive  in  truth, — i.e.,  that  truth  is  beautiful,  simply 
because  it  is  truth.  "  Truth  is  beauty,  beauty  truth,"  is  often 
itself  a  lie.  Truth  has  been  well  said  to  be  stranger  than  fiction, 
— it  is  often  nastier.  Certain  truths,  like  strong  medicine,  are 
not  adapted  to  youthful  minds  that  cannot  be  relied  upon  to  go 
beneath  the  surface  and  see  the  moral  that  adorns  the  tale. 
When  the  young  person  is  compelled  to  dig  through  yards  of 
filth  to  find  so  diminutive  a  pearl  as  most  realists  have  to  offer, 
he  would  better  seek  for  his  mental  and  moral  training  nearer  at 
hand.  To  be  compelled  to  condone  a  barrel  of  realistic  filth  as 
the  price  of  a  few  grains  of  alleged  good  intention  on  the  author's 
part  is  asking  too  much. 

There  is  much  buncombe  about  the  legal  "  restriction"  of 
the  publication  and  sale  of  obscene  books.  The  splitting  of  hairs 
between  things  that  are  obscene  because  they  are  meant  to  be 
obscene,  and  those  which  are  not  obscene  because  the  writer  did 
not  openly  acknowledge  their  obscenity,  is  very  amusing.  The 
obscure  author  of  an  obscene  book  has  his  work  stopped  in  the 
mails  and  himself  sent  to  prison.  A  medical  journal  was  once 
stopped  in  transmission,  and  much  trouble  was  caused  the 
editor,  because  an  article  in  it  was  said  to  be  obscene.  Zola  and 
Boccaccio  may  monopolize  the  mails,  if  it  be  desired,  and  none 
shall  say  them  nay.  If  there  is  anything  more  obscene  than 
Zola  unexpurgated,  I  am  ignorant  of  it.  Taking  "  La  Terre" 
as  an  example  of  his  work,  it  is  difficult  to  draw  the  line  between 
his  realism  and  ordinary  obscenity.  When  the  healthful  reac- 
tion against  vile  literature  comes,  as  it  one  day  must,  Zola's 


SEXUAL   VICE   AND    CRIME  343 

name  will  be  anathema,  and  the  Decameron  will  no  longer  be  a 
classic.  Classic? — the  more  shame  to  those  who  made  it  so. 
It  is  meat  for  strong  men,  whose  innocence  is  but  a  memory, 
and  for  litterateurs  who  seek  for  style  and  theme,  and  are  anes- 
thetized against  literary  filth.  The  "  Rose  D'Amour"  of  later 
days  was  tabooed.  It  was,  to  be  sure,  not  so  well  written  as  the 
Decameron,  but  as  a  moral  educator  it  was  hardly  worse.  As 
for  the  Bible,  a  revised  and  expurgated  edition  should  be  pub- 
lished expressly  for  youth.  With  not  the  slightest  intent  of 
irreverence,  I  claim  that  the  Scriptures  would  gain  weight  and 
moral  influence  were  this  done.  The  vulgar  human  tinge  which 
they  possess,  here  and  there,  does  not  tend  to  enhance  their 
claims  as  a  product  of  divine  inspiration.  The  ethics  which  the 
Scriptures  might  teach  the  young  is  sometimes  lost  in  the  im- 
morality that  the  curious  mind  of  the  child  picks  out  as  one 
might  plums  from  a  cake. 

Some  of  the  classics,  and  many  more  modern  books,  are 
wonder-workers  of  harm  to  the  young.  Such  books  as  the  De- 
cameron, Heptameron,  the  unexpurgated  Arabian  Nights,  Rabe- 
lais, and  Zola's  productions  should  be  denied  the  young,  given 
in  sparing  doses  to  the  mature,  and  permitted  chiefly  to  the  old, 
upon  whom  their  aphrodisiac  eflfects  are  likely  to  be  nil.  Many 
a  man  and  woman  has  extolled  the  literary  beauty  of  these  books 
who  would  not  have  read  two  pages  of  any  one  of  them  had 
their  salacity  not  been  in  evidence.  The  exceptions  are  the 
literary  connoisseur  and  the  sociologist.  To  specialize  on  Rabe- 
lais, I  will  say  that,  although  the  dogma  of  literary  infallibility 
invests  the  old  ruffian  like  a  halo,  "  dear  old  Rabelais"  is  vulgar 
old  Rabelais,  just  the  same.  The  world  has  been  made  worse, 
not  better,  by  every  such  production. 

Dean  Swift  was  a  great  satirist.  His  mind  was  a  well,  at 
the  bottom  of  which  were  gems  of  thought,  but  the  well  was  a 
poisoned  one  and  a  muddy.  Possibly  the  youth  of  that  day  were 
not  so  susceptible  as  ours ;  besides,  morals  has  changed.  More 
than  likely,  youth  was  not  then  especially  addicted  to  midnight 
oil.  Certain  it  is  that  some  of  the  intellectual  meat  Swift  gave 
his  generation  is  too  strong  for  the  youth  of  ours. 


344  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

Balzac  apologized  for  the  immorality  of  genius.  Mesdames 
George  Sand  and  George  Eliot  devoted  their  lives  to  demon- 
strating and  exploiting  their  antisocial  views  of  the  sexual  rela- 
tion. A  great  tragedienne,  now  living,  alluded  to  her  son  as 
an  "  accident  of  love,"  felicitating  herself  the  while  on  the  multi- 
plicity of  her  amours,  and  the  paucity  of  accidents  attending 
them.  Sexual  liberty  is  probably  not  too  high  a  price  for  the 
world  to  pay  for  its  geniuses,  but  the  youthful  mind  knows  little 
of  social  values. 

The  publisher  of  erotic  literature  lays  the  blame  upon  the 
public.  "  The  public  demands  such  books,  therefore  I  sell  them." 
The  fallacy  of  this  argument  is  obvious  enough,  as  will  be  seen 
later,  but  we  will  concede  the  public  demand.  It  is  a  sad  fact 
that  the  average  man  and  the  more  than  occasional  woman  or 
girl  will  sneak  behind  the  door  to  devour  a  lewd  book  or  picture. 
Many  Parisian  tourists  bring  back  to  America  books  and  pictures 
peculiarly  French,  and  have  no  difficulty  in  finding  people  who 
appreciate  them. 

Whatever  defence  may  be  put  up  for  salacious  and  erotic 
literature,  the  fact  remains  that  it  is  responsible  for  much  moral 
depravity  and  chaos  in  the  minds  of  young  persons.  The  tur- 
bulent psycho-sexual  emotions  of  pubescence  are  heightened  and 
perverted  by  improper  reading.  Just  as  the  growing  lad  absorbs 
pernicious  ideas  of  heroism  from  the  exploits  of  road-agents 
and  pirates,  so  both  boys  and  girls  absorb  feverishly  unhealthy 
moral  impressions  from  the  erotic  romances  of  literature.  The 
wrong  kind  of  reading  has  ever  played  a  prominent  part  in 
populating  the  brothel. 

The  yellow  journal  must  bear  its  share  of  the  blame.  Sexual 
vice  is  blazoned  to  the  world  in  all  its  varied  forms  by  the  great 
modern  daily.  The  impression  gained  by  young  persons  is  that 
sexual  immorality  in  high  places  is  smart,  and  not  at  all  repre- 
hensible. The  amours  of  a  stage  celebrity  are  glossed  over  in 
such  a  way  as  to  make  them  very  alluring  to  undisciplined 
minds.  Sensational  divorce  suits  are  related  in  every  detail. 
The  advertising  pages  are  filled  with  advertisements  of  quack 
doctors  and  abortion  shops,  with  all  their  disgusting  minutiae  of 


SEXUAL   VICE   AND    CRIME  345 

description.  Oftentimes  the  assignation  "  personal"  and  tlie 
"  matrimonial  agency"  are  much  in  evidence.  The  press  in  gen- 
eral defends  itself  by  the  assertion  that  it  merely  gives  the  public 
what  it  wants.  The  public  taste,  however,  like  public  opinion, 
is  largely  a  matter  of  newspaper  creation,  and  is  very  much  what 
the  press  makes  it.  But  papers  must  be  printed  and  sold,  and 
advertisements  are  the  bone  and  sinew  of  the  newspaper. 

The  degeneracy  of  the  modern  stage  is  so  evident  that  it  is 
difficult  to  understand  how  any  one  can  be  found  to  dispute  it. 
The  classic  drama  is  well-nigh  a  thing  of  the  past.  The  time  is 
not  far  distant  when  he  who  would  render  Shakespeare  from 
the  boards  will  find  it  an  expensive  luxury  indeed.  The  play 
with  the  honest  moral  has  gone  out  of  fashion.  There  is  a  cer- 
tain counterfeit  of  it,  in  which  the  gross  indecency  of  the  play 
is  condoned  by  an  alleged  moral.  The  fraud  and  deceit  are  so 
palpable  as  to  be  ridiculous.  Now  and  again  the  legitimate 
drama,  or  clean  comedy,  asserts  itself,  but  the  average  manager 
is  afraid  of  it.  It  does  not  usually  pay.  Time  was  when  plays 
that  are  now  eagerly  sought  by  both  managers  and  public  would 
have  been  hissed  off  the  stage.  The  "  living  picture"  of  to-day 
was  tabooed  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago.  The  occasional  variety 
show  of  those  days  is  now  represented  by  the  vaudeville  craze, 
that  tolerates  exhibitions  which  would  have  laid  the  offender 
liable  to  legal  complications  not  so  very  long  since. 

The  better  class  of  players  themselves  have  begun  to  protest 
against  the  prostitution  of  the  histrionic  art.  The  modern  stage 
is  not  altogether  devoid  of  noble  artists  who  strive  to  elevate  it. 
Mansfield,  with  all  his  idiosyncrasies,  has  never  stooped  to  the 
level  of  salacity.  He  relies  upon  his  art  alone.  Of  Sothern, 
a  recent  critic  says,  "  He  does  fine  things  with  spirit,  decorum, 
and  scholarship.  He  takes  infinite  pains.  He  shuns  meretricious 
exploitation  as  men  shun  pestilence.  He  asks  no  odds  of  that 
whimsical  but  numerous  throng  of  playgoers  who  regard  the 
theatre  merely  as  a  place  of  amusement,  and  he  asks  fewer  of 
certain  shrewd  and  intensely  commercial  gentlemen  who  are 
willing  to  make  obeisance  to  art  only  when  it  insures  them  large 
and  prompt  returns." 


346  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

The  better  female  element  of  the  stage  is  neither  unapprecia- 
tive  nor  unresentful  towards  the  decadence  of  histrionic  art. 
Miss  Blanche  Walsh  has  expressed  herself  emphatically  upon 
the  pruriency  of  the  modern  play.  It  is  a  pity  that  the  spirit  and 
clean  work  of  Miss  Mary  Anderson  could  not  be  generally  ac- 
cepted as  a  model  for  modern  female  stage-folk.  There  was  an 
artist — and  a  woman.  But  the  modern  actress  in  general  is 
bound  hand  and  foot.  She  must  choose  between  her  innate 
delicacy  and  idleness  and  poverty. 

To  protests  on  the  part  of  players  the  oily  manager  replies, 
"  The  public  demands  the  class  of  plays  of  which  you  complain." 
The  chief  support  of  the  immoral  play,  then,  is  "  the  Lie  of  the 
Manager."  Human  nature,  as  I  have  elsewhere  remarked,  has 
a  specific  gravity  that  tends  to  drag  downward.  Morality  has 
been  accomplished  by  hard  work.  As  soon  as  inhibitions  are 
removed,  human  nature  tends  to  revert  to  the  primitive  condi- 
tion from  which  it  sprang.  Shrewd  judges  of  human  nature 
take  advantage  of  this — and  who  is  shrewder  than  the  theatrical 
manager  ? 

The  argument  of  "  public  demand"  is  absurd.  Because 
human  nature  tends  to  revert  to  a  lower  moral  standard  is  no 
reason  why  it  should  be  pushed  in  that  direction.  A  child,  a 
weak  woman,  or  a  degenerate  who  once  tastes  liquor  is  liable 
to  acquire  an  appetite  for  it.  Shall  we,  then,  feed  the  victim 
alcohol,  simply  because  he  demands  it,  and  is  willing  to  pay 
the  price? 

The  moral  decline  of  the  modern  play  is,  in  brief,  due  to 
two  causes, — viz.,  (i)  the  great  specific  gravity  of  morals — the 
innate  depravity  of  human  nature,  and  (2)  the  commercial 
shrewdness  of  the  manager,  who  takes  advantage  of  this  human 
quality  for  his  own  ends,  and  caters  to  and  develops  a  depraved 
public  taste.  He  sometimes  even  enacts  the  role  of  procurer, 
by  fostering  immorality  on  the  part  of  chorus  girls  to  attract  the 
patronage  of  weak-brained  men. 

Vice  is  put  upon  the  stage  nowadays  in  the  most  attractive 
form  possible.  I  recall  a  play  in  which  two  well-known  ex- 
ponents of  "  refined  comedy"  appeared,  that  not  only  condoned 


SEXUAL   VICE   AND   CRIME  347 

sexual  vice,  but  illustrated  it  in  a  manner  necessarily  most  per- 
nicious in  its  effects  upon  young  persons.  A  high-class  brothel 
was  depicted  upon  the  stage,  in  which  aristocratic  men  and 
fashionable  demi-mondaines  were  seen  with  all  the  glitter  and 
circumstance  attending  such  establishments  in  real  life.  The 
familiar  relations  of  men  and  women  in  the  Under  World,  the 
elegant  costumes,  the  champagne,  private  supper-rooms,  and 
music  were  all  in  evidence ;  nothing  characteristic  was  lacking. 
The  effect  of  such  exhibitions  upon  the  impressionable  minds  of 
youth  is  self-evident.  There  was  a  matter-of-course,  "  Every- 
body who  is  anybody  does  it,"  tone  to  the  performance  that 
would  counteract  any  dozen  moral  lessons  the  stage  could  pre- 
sent. The  moral  lesson  alleged  to  be  inculcated  by  most  modern 
salacious  plays  is  merely  managerial  hypocrisy, — a  mercantile 
raison  d'etre.  A  small  minimum  of  far-fetched  moral  instruc- 
tion cannot  redeem  a  great  maximum  of  filth. 

That  the  immoral  atmosphere  of  stage-life  itself  has  an 
effect  in  moulding  the  sexual  ideas  and  habits  of  youth  goes 
without  saying.  There  are  many  noble  men  and  women  among 
players,  and  the  actor  of  to-day  occupies  a  much  higher  plane 
than  he  did  a  few  decades  ago,  but  the  habit  of  some  stage-folk 
of  playing  matrimonial  battledore  and  shuttlecock  in  their  private 
lives  is  most  demoralizing.  That  matrimony  is  a  mere  form 
with  many  in  the  histrionic  profession  is  so  evident  that  to  call 
attention  to  it  is  almost  supererogation.  The  example  afforded 
by  the  much  divorced,  more  married  darlings  of  the  stage  is 
very  demoralizing  to  youth.  The  young  person  is  taught  one 
code  of  morals  at  home,  and  has  something  entirely  different 
depicted  for  his  instruction  by  certain  prominent  actors  and 
actresses.  As  they  are  gods  and  goddesses  in  the  eyes  of  youth, 
and  do  not  seem  to  lose  social  caste  because  of  their  peculiar 
sexual  customs,  their  young  admirers  are  likely  to  move  along 
the  line  of  least  resistance.  This  line,  being  surrounded  by  an 
atmosphere  of  romance,  and  given  an  especial  fascination  by  the 
glare  of  the  footlights  and  press  prominence,  adds  to  the  diffi- 
culties of  those  who  would  fain  inculcate  proper  moral  views  in 
the  youthful  mind. 


348  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

Both  boys  and  girls  in  these  modern  days  often  come  to 
regard  with  tolerant,  curious,  and  even  longing  eyes  the  moral 
lapses  of  social,  literary,  and  stage  celebrities.  Youth,  in  its 
innocence,  has  difficulty  in  harmonizing  the  edict  of  Society, 
"  Thou  shalt  not,"  with  the  special  dispensation  in  behalf  of  the 
favored  few, — "  Of  course,  this  does  not  mean  public  person- 
ages like  you."  Vice  thinly  veiled  is  more  dangerous  than  the 
flagrant  variety.  Gilded  though  it  was  by  mawkish  sentimen- 
tality, apologized  for  as  it  was  by  social  faddists,  Du  Maurier's 
"  Trilby,"  with  its  "  pink  teas"  and  "  yellow  breakfasts,"  was 
insidious  and  deadly.  A  Magdalen  repentant  has  ever  been  a 
lesson  in  morality,  but  the  naive  admission  of  Trilby,  that  she 
had  had  a  limited  number  of  lovers,  is  hardly  to  be  admitted  to 
Magdalenic  literature.  As  moral  educators,  some  of  the  female 
exponents  of  the  histrionic  art  now  before  the  public  are  not 
brilliant  examples.  That  such  artists  have  a  pernicious  influence 
is  apparent  even  to  the  most  liberal  minded.  Where  the  per- 
sonal influence  of  the  player  is  not  pernicious,  the  plays  she  pre- 
sents are  often  so.  Reform  in  this  direction  may  eventually 
come,  through  a  healthier  public  and  managerial  sentiment  and 
the  opposition  of  the  better  class  of  players  to  stage  pruriency. 
The  drama  should  be  educational  and  refining,  rather  than  a 
hot-bed  in  which  to  develop  immorality  in  the  minds  of  the 
young. 

It  is  possible  that  carrying  immoral  plays  to  extremes  may 
eventually  kill  them.  The  public  palate  may  become  anesthe- 
tized through  sheer  satiety.  The  novelty  of  such  plays  having 
worn  off,  the  public  demand  may  revert  to  decent  plays  as  the 
only  possible  means  of  titillation  of  its  palate.  When  the  thrills 
produced  by  immoral  plays  cease  from  satiety,  the  immoral 
play  may  grow  so  commonplace  that  it  is  no  longer  immoral, 
and  will  cease  to  attract.  The  nakedness  of  the  savage  shocks 
civilized  man  and  woman  at  first,  but  ere  long  is  looked  upon 
quite  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  ceases  to  shock. 

That  the  moral  tone  of  the  female  portion  of  large  com- 
munities has  changed  of  late  years  is  obvious.  Time  was  when 
women  who  made  the  slightest  pretence  to  respectability  shunned 


SEXUAL   VICE   AND   CRIME  349 

open  participation  in  the  prurient  or  scandalous.  The  changed 
attitude  of  the  sex  is  well  illustrated  by  salacious  trials  of  divorce 
suits  in  open  court.  In  one  case  occurring  in  Chicago  the  evi- 
dence was  such  as  to  make  hardened  men  blush.  Women  from 
all  classes  of  society,  some  with  the  peach-bloom  of  supposedly 
innocent  girlhood  upon  their  cheeks,  crowded  the  court-room 
and  eagerly  drank  in  every  word  of  the  putrid  details  of  evi- 
dence. If  any  of  them  blushed,  it  must  have  been  internally,  for 
the  ordinary  variety  of  blushes  was  not  in  evidence. 

MATRIMONY    AND   THE   SOCIAL   EVIL 

Certain  phases  of  the  matrimonial  problem  have  much  to 
do  with  prostitution.  Society's  attitude  towards  the  m.atri- 
monial  question  is  based  largely  upon  mawkish  sentiment,  ignor- 
ance of  natural  law,  and  the  impracticability  of  its  application  in 
every-day  life.  The  average  moralist,  accepting  marriage  as  a 
divine  institution  instead  of  what  it  really  is, — a  conventionalized 
regulation  of  sexual  love,  a  civil,  business,  and  social  contract, — 
sees  nothing  in  the  problem  save  conformity  or  non-conformity 
to  divine  law.  Quite  naturally  he  cannot  conceive  of  such  a 
thing  as  divine  error,  and  consequently  is  dominated  entirely  by 
the  "  Tied  you  are,  tied  you  must  stay,"  dogma.  From  this 
stand-point  there  can  be  no  such  thing  as  marital  mistakes  to  be 
rectified.  Infallibility  of  matrimonial  selection  is  taken  for 
granted,  and  invariably  demanded  by  such  reasoners. 

Unfortunately  for  the  philosophy  of  such  moralists,  how- 
ever, the  "  Heaven-made  marriage"  is  in  real  life  a  theologian's 
dream.  Its  divinity  is  sadly  marred  by  the  fact  that,  whatever  it 
is  in  theory,  in  practice  it  is  a  human  institution  in  which  the 
contracting  parties  are  not  demigods  but  human  beings,  with 
all  the  fleshly  attributes  thereunto  belonging.  These  human 
beings  are  possessed  of  certain  animal  traits,  besides  the  intel- 
lectual attributes  that  are  distinctively  human.  They  stand  not 
alone,  but  act  upon,  and  are  acted  upon  by,  the  other  individuals 
who,  with  them,  make  up  a  social  system. 

The  primal  flaw  in  the  matrimonial  relation  is  that  marriatje 
is,  of  necessity,  experimental.    Neither  of  the  contracting  parties 


350  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

has,  as  a  rule,  any  means  of  knowing  the  true  character  of  the 
other.  The  young  man  who  goes  courting  dons  his  best  be- 
havior with  his  best  clothes.  The  young  woman  courted,  not  to 
be  outdone  at  woman's  own  game,  lays  even  greater  stress  upon 
externals.  She  puts  on  her  prettiest  gown  and  "  company  man- 
ners," and  does  her  best  to  conceal  not  only  her  physical  defects, 
but  her  mental  and  moral  flaws.  Rouge,  powder,  and  pads 
accomplish  the  one  result,  and  clever  dissimulation  the  other. 
Her  mission  in  life  is  to  catch  a  husband — honestly,  if  she  can, 
but  to  catch  him.  If  one  or  both  be  inexperienced,  the  game  is 
an  easy  one,  and  the  end  assured ;  propinquity  assists  the 
fraud.  There  is  no  critical  study  of  character,  as  a  rule.  The 
ideals  of  "  calf  love"  reduced  to  their  ultimate  are  largely  bluff 
and  dry-goods.  When  love  approves,  the  loved  one  is  past 
criticism.  When  the  aim  is  a  purely  mercenary  one,  especially, 
there  is  no  incentive  to  character  study. 

After  marriage  both  love  and  mercenary  selfishness  become 
more  critical.  Marriage  is  not  a  question  of  an  evening  call  or 
a  box  at  the  opera ;  it  is  a  steady  and  intimate  association,  day 
in  and  day  out,  which  only  compatibles  can  face  without  disaster. 
The  rose  tints  of  the  pre-marital  ideal  become  murky  indeed, 
when  incompatibility  becomes  plainly  manifest.  Considering 
the  impossibility  of  weighing  the  question  of  compatibility  be- 
fore marriage,  what  wonder  that  there  should  be  so  many  rup- 
tures after  marriage? 

Compatibility  involves  several  elements  that  intimate  asso- 
ciation only  can  discover,  and  which,  broadly  speaking,  may  be 
resolved  into  physical  and  mental.  In  many  instances — in  the 
majority,  perhaps — the  mental  and  physical  qualities  that  attract 
or  repel  are  so  blended  that  it  is  hard  to  determine  where  the 
one  terminates  and  the  other  begins.  Psychic  impressions 
modify  the  physical,  and  vice  versa.  The  resulting  complex, 
aided  by  their  imaginations,  may  or  may  not  correspond  to  the 
pre-marital  ideal  pictured  in  the  minds  of  the  contracting  parties. 
That  such  ideals  should  be  often  shattered  is  by  no  means 
surprising.  That  an  ideal  based  entirely  upon  externals, 
and  the  superstructure  of  which  is  built  up  from  an  imagina- 


SEXUAL    VICE    AND   CRIME  351 

tion  dominated  by  psycho-sexual  erethism,  is  greatly  handi- 
capped in  its  contest  with  the  psychic  and  physical  reality  is 
obvious. 

Under  natural  conditions,  the  physical  is  far  more  important 
than  the  psychic  in  the  question  of  mating.  Sexual  attraction  is 
a  purely  animal  attribute  which,  invest  it  as  we  may  with  a 
halo  of  sentiment  and  romance,  is  none  the  less  an  instinct  that 
is  common  to  all  species.  Civilization  and  its  attendant  refine- 
ments have  added  the  psycho-sexual  to  the  purely  animal,  but  as 
yet  the  former  by  no  means  dominates  matrimonial  selection, 
nor  would  the  best  interests  of  the  race  be  conserved  by  its  domi- 
nation. The  unlike  attracts  and  the  like  repels,  here  as  else- 
where. If  the  large,  powerful  man  usually  selected  a  woman 
built  upon  similar  lines,  and  the  small  man  the  small  woman,  we 
would  in  time  have  two  races  side  by  side, — one  of  dwarfs  and 
the  other  of  giants.  Should  intellectual  persons  always  gravi- 
tate together,  procreation  would  finally  cease  and  the  race  would 
run  out,  dying  at  the  top,  after  passing  through  all  the  degrees 
of  physical  and  mental  degeneration.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
natural  tendency  of  human  beings  to  select  mates  of  opposite 
characteristics  has  been  conservative,  and  has  tended  to  main- 
tain a  certain  physical  and  mental  average. 

But  the  tendency  to  rise  superior  to  the  purely  physical  in 
matrimonial  selection  is  growing,  pari  passu  with  the  march 
of  civilization ;  so  is  the  business  of  the  divorce  courts  and  so, 
alas !  is  degeneracy.  Men  and  women  are  growing  more  and 
more  selfish  and  exacting.  The  family  is  less  and  less  their 
concern  as  time  goes  on.  The  attributes  of  the  given  member 
of  the  opposite  sex  as  a  prospective  parent  are  of  less  and  less 
moment.  The  demand  for  congenial  companionship  is  greater 
than  it  has  been  heretofore,  and,  as  the  test  can  only  be  made 
after  marriage,  mental  incompatibility  has  necessarily  become 
more  prominent  in  matrimony.  The  psychic  element  is  purely 
artificial,  and  therefore  less  stable  than  the  purely  physical.  The 
savage  does  not  prate  of  incompatibility ;  the  question  is  with 
him  altogether  a  physical  one.  The  physical  element,  however 
modified  by  civilization,  being  still  dominant  in  matrimony,  the 


352  THE   DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

proportion  of  discords  as  compared  with  the  sum  total  of  mar- 
riages is  as  yet  small,  although  it  is  steadily  growing. 

I  assume  that  purely  physical  incompatibility  is  the  excep- 
tion, yet,  as  all  physicians  know,  it  exists  far  oftener  than  is 
generally  supposed.  It  is  not  manifest  in  frigidity  alone,  for  in 
many  instances  there  is  an  instinctive  repugnance  to  physical 
contact,  yet  no  complaint  of  frigidity  can  justly  be  made,  and 
the  mental  aspect  of  the  situation  is  apparently  ideal.  If  he  had 
been  more  materialistic,  Goethe  would  not  have  been  far  from 
the  truth  in  the  theory  implied  in  his  "  Elective  Affinities." 
Mayhap  the  Buddhistic  theory  of  sexual  affinity,  so  beautifully 
portrayed  by  Lafcadio  Hearn,^  has  also  the  soul  of  truth  in  it. 
Possibly  there  is  for  each  human  being  another  in  the  world 
who  is  a  reincarnation  of  one  whom  he  or  she  loved  when  the 
world  was  young,  but  most  likely  the  unconscious  memory  is 
more  organic  than  spiritual ;  psycho-physical  rather  than 
psychic.  In  truth,  no  psychic  element  whatever  is  really  neces- 
sary to  explain  the  attraction  any  more  than  to  explain  chemical 
affinity. 

If  there  be  aught  of  truth  in  the  theory  of  affinity, — and  who 
would  be  so  ultra-materialistic  and  unobserving  as  to  gainsay 
it,  however  materialistic  the  explanation  ? — the  fact  remains  that 
many  persons  go  through  life  without  meeting  their  ideal.  Some 
realize  what  they  have  missed ;  the  majority,  fortunately,  do 
not,  and  are  perfectly  happy  in  their  ignorance.  In  fact,  the 
sum  total  of  misery  that  attends  the  untimely  recognition  of  the 
psycho-physical  ideal  more  than  offsets  the  happiness  that  hu- 
manity derives  from  it.  When  the  ideal  comes  in  a  legitimate 
manner,  or  when  the  conception  of  the  ideal  does  not  exist,  and 
the  partner  selected  is  sufficiently  near  the  physical  correlative, 
everything  goes  smoothly.  Should  the  ideal  appear  at  an  in- 
opportune moment,  trouble  arises, — trouble  that  the  whole  world 
recognizes  and  blindly  explains  on  moral  grounds. 

I  am  well  aware  that  the  ideal  is  usually  assigned  to  the 
realm  of  spiritual  things,  and  am  willing  to  acknowledge  that 

'  Out  of  the  East. 


SEXUAL   VICE   AND    CRIME  353 

the  hyperesthetic  psycho-sexuality  of  civilized  races  has  much 
to  do  with  the  construction  of  ideals,  but  I  am  nevertheless  con- 
vinced that  the  question  of  physical  affinity  is  to  be  given  serious 
consideration.  It  is  here  that  I  would  take  issue  with  the  purely 
spiritual  conception  of  the  ideal.  The  instance  has  been  known 
where  two  childless  couples  have  been  divorced  and  remarried, 
each  taking  the  partner  of  the  other,  with  resulting  fruitfulness 
in  both  families.  There  is  a  biologic  element  in  such  cases  that 
the  moral  philosopher  would  do  well  to  consider.  When  a  beau- 
tiful, refined,  and  intellectual  woman,  surrounded  by  every  lux- 
ury, runs  away  with  a  coarse,  unattractive,  illiterate  stable-hand, 
one  is  perforce  compelled  to  wonder  why  the  woman  grovelled. 
The  spiritual  ideal  will  hardly  be  advanced  here.  Are  all  such 
cases  to  be  explained  upon  the  moral  specific  gravity  basis?  If 
so,  what  removed  the  inhibitions — what  made  the  moral  apple 
fall? 

Where  the  physical  conditions  of  married  persons  are  abso- 
lutely harmonious,  mental  incompatibility  is  unusual.  Where 
one  or  the  other  is  a  high-strung,  neurotic  individual,  however, 
the  psychic  element  is  likely  to  be  discordant.  Should  both  be 
neurotic,  psychic  compatibility  is  almost  impossible.  With  each 
succeeding  dissension,  the  pre-marital  and  early  marital  halo  of 
sentiment  grows  dimmer.  Finally,  the  halo  disappears,  and 
there  is  left  a  physical  reality  that  has  not  one  lineament  of 
the  ideal. 

In  most  cases  of  marital  infelicity,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  the 
husband  is  at  fault.  There  is  a  very  cogent  reason  for  this. 
He  has  usually  a  physical  standard  in  mind  based  upon  previous 
experience.  While  the  glamour  of  early  married  life  lasts,  he  is 
satisfied  with  the  situation.  The  inexperience  of  the  wife  is  a 
decided  novelty.  When  satiety  arrives,  as  it  usually  does  sooner 
or  later,  he  begins  to  recall  memories  of  past  experience,  in  the 
light  of  which  the  physical  charms  of  the  wife  begin  to  pale. 
Once  the  sexual  will-o'-the-wisp  begins  flitting  about  in  his 
brain,  he  discovers  physical  incompatibility,  and  resumes  the 
chase  after  elusive  past  sexual  impressions  that  his  marriage 
temporarily    interrupted.      His    relations    with    his    wife    have 

23 


354  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

perhaps  been  a  species  of  legalized  rape,  that  have  served  to 
make  permanent  and  incurable  any  qualities  of  frigidity  which 
she  may  have  possessed.  The  marital  relation  is  for  her  only  a 
painful  and  disgusting  memory,  and  the  very  thought  of  it 
inspires  her  with  abhorrence. 

In  many  cases  moral  degeneracy  on  one  or  both  sides  is  the 
cause  of  infelicity.  The  antisocial  instincts  of  the  degenerate 
are  as  manifest  in  the  matrimonial  relation  as  they  are  else- 
where. 

The  undue  familiarity  usually  existing  between  husband  and 
wife  is  a  feeder  of  sexual  vice.  Once  the  halo  of  sex  mystery  is 
dispelled,  romance  often  has  a  hard  road,  indeed.  I  am  firmly 
convinced  that  a  less  intimate  association  of  husband  and  wife 
would  be  better  for  both  their  health  and  morals.  The  less 
knowledge  they  have  of  each  other's  physiology,  the  better  for 
sentiment.  Privacy  is  an  individual  right,  in  or  out  of  matri- 
mony. 

Familiarity  breeds  satiety ;  satiety  is  the  parent  of  sexual 
discontent.  The  satiated,  discontented  man  is  very  like  the  pam- 
pered house-dog,  who  leaves  a  meal  of  delicate  viands  to  feed  in 
the  garbage-barrel.  He  often  browses  in  queer  pastures,  in 
search  of  new  thrills  for  his  exhausted  psycho-sexual  centres, 
and  is  often  unable  to  find  them  in  aught  but  a  debasement  that 
is  surprising  to  those  who  know  him.  Only  the  student  of  sex 
psychology  can  explain  the  escapades  of  "  Milord"  with  the  pre- 
siding genius  of  the  scullery. 

There  are  those  who  believe  that  the  regulation  of  all  sexual 
vice  growing  out  of  the  matrimonial  relation  revolves  around 
the  divorce  problem.  Views  upon  this  subject  vary  in  liberality 
from  the  "  wide  open"  policy  to  the  prohibitive  doctrines  of  the 
Catholic  Church.  Much  that  is  foolish  and  impracticable  has 
been  written  upon  it.  The  question  as  to  whether  morality  is 
bettered  or  made  worse  by  lax  divorce  laws  is  still  an  open  one. 
The  distinguished  author,  F.  Marion  Crawford,  has  recently 
displayed  much  sentiment,  but  little  knowledge  of  sociology,  in 
a  dissertation  upon  the  subject  appearing  in  one  of  our  Chicago 
newspapers.    He  says : 


SEXUAL   VICE   AND   CRIME  355 

"  When  two  people  find,  after  an  honest  eflfort  and  a  reasonable 
time,  that  they  cannot  live  under  the  same  roof,  let  them  separate  by  all 
means,  and  by  mutual  agreement.  But  why  should  they  insist  upon 
marrying  again?  The  chances  are  very  great  that  they  are  not  by  char- 
acter fitted  to  live  a  married  life,  and  that  one  of  them  is  far  better 
fitted  than  the  other  to  take  care  of  the  children,  if  there  are  any. 

"  Again,  if  one  of  the  two  has  been  unfaithful  in  marriage,  let  the 
right  of  separation  rest  with  the  other,  since  the  right  of  forgiveness 
does.  But  let  it  be  law  that  the  one  who  has  committed  the  fault  shall 
forfeit  the  right  of  marrying  any  one  else. 

"  Let  American  woman  consider  those  countries  in  which  divorces 
are  most  easily  obtained.  They  are  the  very  countries  in  which  the 
position  of  woman  is  one  of  inferiority  and  degradation." 

Mr.  Crawford  begins  with  a  logical  proposition,  one  which 
should  be  self-evident  to  any  thinking  mind.  Infallibility  of 
marital  selection  is  a  manifest  impossibility.  If  either  the  man 
or  the  woman  has  made  a  serious  mistake,  matrimony  is  hell. 
There  should  be  no  law,  human  or  divine,  compelling  people  to 
live  in  a  hell  on  earth.  To  compel  them  to  do  so  is  a  wrong, 
both  to  the  individual  and  to  society.  It  is  in  itself  immoral,  and 
leads  to  immorality  outside  the  pale  of  matrimony.  It  may  lead 
to  murder  and  suicide.  Should  two  people,  each  of  whom 
thought  the  other  was  an  ideal,  and  who  in  their  ignorance 
thought  they  could  live  together  in  harmony,  be  put  in  the  posi- 
tion of  a  couple  of  cats  tied  together  and  hung  upon  a  clothes- 
line the  rest  of  their  lives?  Humanity  cries,  "  Spare  the  cats!" 
why  not,  "  Spare  the  people  ?" 

The  progeny  of  ill-assorted  marriages  is  likely  to  be  de- 
generate. Family  quarrels,  a  lack  of  mutual  respect  in  the 
parents,  vicious  home  example,  and  negligence  in  training  will, 
however,  accomplish  the  same  ends  as  primary  degeneracy ;  it 
will  produce  secondary  degeneracy.  The  children  grow  up 
profligates,  criminals,  and  prostitutes  in  many  cases,  and  are  a 
burden  on  the  community.  If  the  parents  arc  degenerates  to 
begin  with,  so  much  the  worse  for  the  children  and  for  society. 
By  all  means  let  them  separate,  and  stand  not  on  the  order  of 
their  separation. 

But  Mr.  Crawford  has  forgotten  a  very  important  point, — 


356  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

viz,,  the  future  welfare  of  the  woman.  She  has  perhaps  sacri- 
ficed the  flower  of  her  youth  in  her  unfortunate  matrimonial 
venture.  Her  opportunities  are  gone.  She  has  no  visible  means 
of  support.  Shall  she  be  driven  to  starvation  or  the  brothel  by 
"  mutual  agreement"  ?  It  is  unfair,  perhaps,  in  a  certain  sense, 
for  the  husband  to  be  compelled  to  support  the  woman  until  she 
has  married  or  become  self-supporting,  but  it  nevertheless  rests 
between  him  and  the  State.  The  State  will  not,  and  he  should, 
support  her.  Let  it  be  understood  that  the  man  must  pay  the 
price  of  the  matrimonial  experiment,  and  there  will  be  fewer 
"  experiments,"  and  fewer  "  mutual  agreements."  Should  the 
woman  be  the  offender,  or  subsequently  lead  an  immoral  life, 
the  husband  ought  to  be  released  from  further  responsibility. 
It  is  a  fair  rule  in  love  that  every  man  should  pay  for  his  own, 
not  for  another's. 

The  rest  of  Mr.  Crawford's  argument  is  convincing  proof 
of  his  ignorance  of  sociology  and  his  narrow  view-point.  "  Why 
should  they  insist  upon  marrying  again  ?"  he  asks.  Simply  be- 
cause they  should  not  be  condemned  to  outer  darkness  as  a 
punishment  for  their  fallibility  of  judgment,  and,  furthermore, 
because  they  are  human,  and  as  much  entitled  to  such  of  the 
pleasures  of  life  as  revolve  around  sex  as  any  one  else.  These 
pleasures  are  not  legitimately  obtainable  outside  the  marriage 
relation.  Would  you  put  a  premium  on  prostitution,  Mr.  Craw- 
ford, or  do  you  believe  in  asexualization  as  an  appendage  of 
divorce,  although  too  modest  to  say  so  ? 

That  the  one  who  has  sinned  has  forfeited  the  right  of  marry- 
ing again  is  absurd,  unless  the  corollary  be  established  that  such 
a  person  shall  be  locked  up  and  thus  prevented  from  establish- 
ing the  illicit  relations  to  which  he  or  she  would  be  thereby  con- 
demned, if  swayed  by  sexual  impulse.  The  mere  commission 
of  a  sexual  offence  does  not  prove  that  it  would  again  be  perpe- 
trated in  other  matrimonial  relations.  Again,  supposing  some 
one  else,  knowing  the  facts,  wants  to  marry  the  offender,  shall 
the  liberty  of  the  former  be  curtailed  ?  What  a  great  penologist 
Mr.  Crawford  would  make,  to  be  sure.  A  criminal  would  be 
by  him  debarred  from  any  attempt  to  lead  an  honest  life,  because 


SEXUAL   VICE   AND   CRIME  357 

of  previous  offences.  The  doctrine  that  the  criminal  has  no 
rights  and  the  one  who  has  not  sinned  every  right,  is  responsible 
for  all  of  the  cruelty,  ignorance,  and  faulty  methods  that  have 
ever  been  brought  to  bear  upon  the  punishment  and  reformation 
of  the  criminal. 

That  a  couple  fails  to  agree  in  no  sense  proves  their  inadap- 
tability to  married  life  under  proper  conditions.  Physiology, 
psychology,  and  the  theory  of  organic  affinity  are  against  such 
a  proposition. 

The  superiority  of  one  parent  over  the  other  in  the  matter 
of  caring  for  children  is  quite  as  marked  among  people  who  are 
harmoniously  married  as  among  the  divorced.  It  is  the  duty  of 
the  State  to  see  that  all  children  are  properly  reared,  and  espe- 
cially children  of  the  divorced. 

Nothing  could  be  more  unfair  than  the  demand  that  society 
tacitly  makes,  that  infallibility  of  judgment  should  be  exhibited 
in  matrimonial  selection.  This  demand  is  practically  backed 
up  by  penalties,  and  the  church  is  accessory  before  the  fact.  The 
result  is  prostitution,  both  in  and  out  of  matrimony.  As  the 
situation  now  is,  any  fool  with  the  price  of  a  license  and  a 
minister's  fee  can  speedily  walk  into  matrimony,  but  once  in,  he 
or  she  is  expected  to  remain  in,  even  though  it  be  a  hell,  and  it 
requires  much  time,  much  money,  and  several  wise  men  to  get 
the  victim  of  bad  judgment  out  of  the  dilemma. 

There  is  much  opposition  to  making  divorce  easier,  but  none 
to  the  present  system  of  allowing  anybody  capable  of  asking  for 
a  license,  in  person  or  by  proxy,  to  marry.  In  many  States  a 
mere  agreement  to  live  together  as  man  and  wife  constitutes 
marriage.  This  is  well  enough,  but  where  is  the  State  which 
provides  that  mutual  agreement  to  separate  constitutes  divorce? 
Until  marriage  is  made  more  difficult,  and  properly  regulated, 
altruism  would  appear  to  lie  in  the  direction  of  making  divorce 
easier. 

That  the  ease  with  which  divorces  are  obtained  in  some 
countries  is  responsible  for  the  degradation  of  women  is  absurd. 
Are  such  countries  the  equal  of  our  own  in  all  other  respects 
save  the  social  position  of  women  ?    Divorce  is  in  such  countries 


358  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

the  mere  putting  away  of  a  chattel — the  woman  has  no  rights. 
In  Christian  countries  the  woman  has  marital  rights  equal  with 
man's  before  the  law.  She  can  never  be  brought  to  the  Oriental 
level,  whether  divorce  be  easy  or  difficult. 

To  revert  to  the  question  of  the  children  of  the  divorced. 
No  matter  what  the  merits  of  the  differences  between  parents 
may  be,  there  should  be  no  question  as  to  the  responsibility  for 
the  care  of  their  offspring.  It  is  for  the  court  to  decide  upon 
the  moral  fitness  of  each  parent  to  assume  charge  of  the  chil- 
dren, but  their  support  should  be  invariably  imposed  upon  the 
father,  and  he  should  be  compelled  to  perform  his  full  duty, 
within  the  measure  of  his  financial  capacity.  This,  fortunately, 
is  the  usual  custom,  in  theory,  at  least.  In  general,  it  is  safe  to 
say  that  children  often  bridge  over  serious  incompatibilities  and 
engender  a  spirit  of  tolerance  between  individuals  to  whom 
matrimony  would  otherwise  be  insufferable.  Parental  love  and 
responsibility  not  infrequently  overshadow  and  minimize  dif- 
ferences that  would  otherwise  be  too  great  to  be  borne.  The 
love  of  children  is  primarily  unselfish,  and  when  well  developed 
often  subjugates  the  self-interest  of  the  parents  and  compensates 
for  the  lack  of  affinity  sufficiently  to  make  married  life  endurable. 
Maternity  is  a  powerful  repressant  of  prostitution,  as  it  is  of 
crime.  It  is  a  normal  outlet  for  psychic  and  emotional  energy 
which  is  so  powerful  that  it  even  acts  vicariously  with  criminality 
in  female  criminals  and  reforms  them  temporarily.  Childlessness 
in  matrimony  is  a  source  of  serious  danger  to  both  parents. 

That  better  children,  morally,  physically,  and  mentally,  result 
from  happy  marriages  is  indisputable.  The  common  observa- 
tion that  "  natural"  children  are,  on  the  average,  more  beautiful 
than  legitimate  children  in  the  same  social  station  is  worthy  of 
comment  in  this  connection.  Procreation  under  natural  circum- 
stances of  sexual  attraction  is  as  close  to  Nature's  primitive 
design  as  may  be. 

While  the  bond  of  family  is  one  of  the  most  powerful  agents 
in  the  repression  of  prostitution  and  crime,  the  blessings  of 
reproduction  may  be  pushed  to  extremes.  The  idea  that 
married  couples  should  go  on  procreating  children  until  the  limit 


SEXUAL   VICE   AND    CRIME  359 

of  their  physical  capacity  has  been  reached  is  most  illogical  and 
even  pernicious.  The  decadence  of  the  large  American  family 
has  attracted  considerable  attention  of  late,  and  much  that  is 
illogical,  and  more  that  is  hysterical,  has  been  said  upon  the 
subject.  The  progressive  diminution  in  the  size  of  families  is 
by  no  means  a  new  theme  in  this  country,  and  has  given  a  great 
deal  of  concern  to  sociologists  abroad.  That  it  is  not  in  any 
sense  an  American  question  is  proved  by  the  marked  diminution 
in  the  size  of  French  families,  which  has  occasioned  so  much 
alarm  that  the  government  has  oflfered  a  bounty  for  a  certain 
number  of  children.  In  New  Zealand,  a  country  which  is  pecu- 
liarly insular  and  isolated  from  outside  influence,  the  unpopu- 
larity of  matrimony  has  attracted  very  serious  attention,  and  the 
small  size  of  the  latter-day  New  Zealand  family  has  been  the 
occasion  of  marked  comment. 

The  increased  cost  of  living  is  not  only  a  frequent  bar  to 
matrimony,  but,  matrimony  once  undertaken,  is  a  serious  ob- 
stacle in  the  way  of  raising  large  families. 

The  strenuous  American  life,  involving,  as  it  does,  various 
unfavorable  social  and  economic  conditions,  associated  with  the 
pursuit  of  the  Almighty  Dollar,  is  so  decreasing  the  vigor  of  the 
purely  animal  side  of  the  American  that  a  decrease  in  the  size 
of  the  American  family  is  not  to  be  wondered  at.  I  have  serious 
doubts  as  to  whether  this  is  not  conservative  rather  than  other- 
wise. With  a  nervous  parentage,  it  would  seem  better  that  the 
size  of  the  family  should  be  restricted  within  certain  limits. 
The  social  and  industrial  conditions  of  America  tend  to  produce 
nervous  degeneracy,  and  a  large  number  of  nervous  degenerates 
would  hardly  tend  towards  race  improvement.  Better  a  few 
healthy  children  than  a  large  number  of  weaklings. 

I  do  not  believe  that  the  average  well-to-do  American  woman 
is,  under  present  conditions,  physically  fitted  for  raising  a  large 
family,  even  were  she  so  disposed.  The  well-to-do  family  can- 
not very  well  procreate  a  large  number  of  healthy  children.  The 
physically  stronger,  poorer  classes  do  so,  but,  once  bred,  they 
cannot  be  taken  proper  care  of,  and  are  dragged  up  ratlier  than 
reared.  The  great  "  middle  class"  is  at  present  the  racial  stand-b}-. 


36o  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

The  best  bred  children,  improperly  educated  and  uninflu- 
enced by  suitable  parental  control,  are  likely  to  grow  up  a  burden 
on  the  community.  The  responsibility  of  rearing  useful  and  up- 
right citizens  is  a  little  too  great  for  the  poor  female  drudge, 
who  manipulates  the  washboard  with  one  hand,  holds  a  squalling 
baby  with  the  other,  and  simultaneously  attempts  to  keep  in 
control  half  a  dozen  other  demonstrative  and  lusty  children. 
She  has  a  difficult  task  before  her,  even  where  her  environments 
are  favorable  to  the  rearing  of  children,  but  where  the  children 
areTDrought  in  contact  with  evil  associates,  as  they  are  very  likely 
to  be  when  parental  control  is  so  lax  as  it  necessarily  is  under 
such  circumstances,  they  are  not  likely  to  become  either  orna- 
mental or  useful  factors  in  our  social  system. 

Very  large  families  among  the  wealthy  classes,  especially, 
entail  degeneracy,  with  all  the  evils  that  it  brings  in  its  train,  in 
a  large  proportion  of  instances.  If  more  attention  were  paid  to 
quality  of  both  parentage  and  children,  and  less  fretting  done  as 
to  the  possible  disasters  to  the  nation  incidental  to  small  num- 
bers of  children,  it  would  be  better  for  the  race.  At  the  present 
day,  when  practically  no  attention  is  paid  to  stirpiculture  in  the 
human  species,  it  seems  absurd  to  worry  about  the  diminution  in 
size  of  the  American  family. 

Is  the  function  of  the  wife  altogether  that  of  a  breeding 
animal?  Has  she  any  personal  rights?  Should  she  be  sacri- 
ficed to  posterity  ?  Is  it  always  her  duty  to  rear  a  large  family  ? 
Unhesitatingly,  I  answer,  no,  to  each  question.  The  perpetua- 
tion of  the  race  depends  upon  maternity,  it  is  true.  It  is  not, 
however,  woman's  function  merely  to  increase  numbers  at  the 
expense  of  her  own  life  and  comfort.  This  is  a  fallacy,  and  an 
injustice  to  womanhood  that  should  be  contradicted  from  the 
house-tops.  The  woman  who  is  a  mere  beast  of  burden  and 
breeder  of  children  is  a  failure  in  modern  life.  Quality  of 
progeny  is  not  conserved  along  such  lines,  and  quality,  not  quan- 
tity, makes  for  the  elevation  of  the  human  race.  Woman  should 
not  be  sacrificed  to  posterity.  Something  is  due  her  as  a  social 
integer.  She  is  entitled  to  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happi- 
ness.    She,  as  well  as  man,  comes  within  the  provisions  of  the 


SEXUAL    VICE   AND    CRIME  361 

Constitution.  The  fashionable  mother  who  avoids  child-bearing, 
or  neglects  the  few  children  she  has,  is  quite  as  potent  a  factor 
in  civilization  as  the  household  drudge,  for  whom  there  is  no  joy 
anywhere,  and  in  whose  life  there  is  no  music  save  the  rattling 
of  pots  and  kettles,  the  sputter  of  soup-bones,  and  the  shrieks 
of  multitudinous  wailing  infants.  Better  a  single  child,  properly 
reared  by  a  happy,  contented  mother,  than  a  dozen  ill-fed,  un- 
kempt, dirty,  vicious,  and  "  half-baked"  hoodlums. 

I  wish  to  protest,  also,  against  the  view  that  a  man  is  justified 
in  making  his  life  a  species  of  slavery  in  the  support  of  many 
offspring,  under  the  egotistic  and  absurd  notion  that  the  fate 
of  his  country  is  his  particular  care. 

"  Multiply  and  replenish  the  earth"  was  once  sound  doctrine, 
but  it  does  not  uniformly  fit  modern  conditions.  The  scriptural 
injunction  should  be  qualified.  The  multiplication  should  not 
extend  beyond  the  parents'  capacity  to  comfortably  rear  and 
educate  their  children,  nor  beyond  the  number  consistent  with 
the  preservation  of  the  mother's  health  and  happiness.  Chil- 
dren are  many,  and  places  in  life  are  few.  Being  born  is  often 
a  disaster,  social  or  individual,  or  both  ;  never  having  been  born 
may  be  a  blessing,  but  it  never  can  be  a  disaster  to  the  individual. 
The  interests  of  the  individual  may  here  be  the  highest  altruism. 
The  opposite  view  is  responsible  for  much  degeneracy  and  its 
disastrous  results. 

I  am  well  aware  that  the  foregoing  is  not  in  harmony  with 
the  teaching  of  certain  religious  sects,  but  I  am  inclined  to  think 
that  the  glory  of  the  church  rather  than  altruism  underlies  the 
encouragement  given  to  the  rearing  of  multitudinous  children. 
Interference  with  gestation,  unless  as  a  matter  of  life-saving, 
under  competent  medical  advice,  should  not.  of  course,  be 
countenanced,  but  there  are,  in  my  opinion,  legitimate  means  of 
limitation  of  the  size  of  families  when  the  wisdom  of  so  doing 
is  evident. 

There  is  an  economic  side  to  the  question.  Even  at  the  pres- 
ent rate  of  progression,  the  time  will  come  when  the  means  of 
subsistence  will  be  greatly  minimized,  as  compared  with  the 
population. 


362  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

Persons  who  are  intrinsically  eminently  compatible  often 
make  a  complete  failure  of  the  marriage  relation  through  in- 
advertence, ignorance,  or  selfishness.  The  woman  who  ceases 
to  exert  herself  to  be  attractive  to  her  husband  shares  the  bur- 
den of  responsibility  for  domestic  misery  with  the  man  who 
regards  his  wife  as  a  domestic  animal  whose  sole  business 
is  to  rear  children  and  whose  life  is  in  duty  bound  to  be  a 
weird  kaleidoscope  of  scrubbing-brushes,  wash-tubs,  and  dirty 
dishes.  The  indifference  of  woman  to  her  husband's  tastes 
is  one  of  the  brothel's  friends.  The  monotony  of  the  lives 
of  farmers'  wives  peoples  our  insane  asylums ;  the  monotony 
imposed  upon  some  city  wives  peoples  less  respectable  insti- 
tutions. 

The  young  man  struggling  for  fame  and  fortune  sometimes 
marries  too  early,  and  marries  a  woman  in  his  own  sphere.  Suc- 
cess comes,  by  and  by,  and  along  with  other  ambitions  comes 
the  desire  to  possess  a  woman  who  is  more  ornamental  than  the 
one  who  began  life  with  him.  He  may  have  been  a  boor  at  the 
beginning,  but  his  daily  contact  with  the  world  has  smoothed 
oflF  his  rough  angles  and  imparted  to  him  a  semblance  of  literacy 
and  polish  that  gives  him  entree  to  a  social  sphere  into  which  he 
is  ashamed  to  take  his  wife.  She  has  drudged  at  home,  and  has 
not  kept  pace  with  him  in  his  journey  to  success.  His  ideals 
have  changed,  and  the  wife  of  his  youth  is  now  a  misfit.  He 
seeks  the  new  sexual  ideal  and  gets  it,  legitimately  or  not  as 
needs  must.  Oftener  than  not  he  is  a  staunch  supporter  of  the 
brothel.  This  picture  is  not  a  novel  one  in  America,  the  land  of 
the  "  self-made"  man. 

THE    FATE   OF   THE    PROSTITUTE 

The  question,  "What  becomes  of  the  prostitute?"  is  an 
interesting  one,  but  very  difficult  to  answer,  because  of  the  many 
sources  of  fallacy  in  following  the  career  of  public  women,  and 
the  almost  utter  impossibility  of  getting  accurate  data  regarding 
clandestines.     Sanger  ®  claimed  that  the  average  length  of  the 

•Op.  cit. 


SEXUAL   VICE   AND    CRIME  363 

career  of  the  New  York  prostitute  was  about  four  years,  only 
two  and  three-fourths  per  cent,  of  them  being  still  in  the  ranks 
at  the  end  of  ten  years.  Parent-Duchatelet  claims  that  in  Paris 
only  seventeen  and  one-half  per  cent,  are  still  engaged  in  pros- 
titution at  the  end  of  ten  years. 

Many  causes  enter  into  the  falling  out  of  prostitutes  from 
the  ranks.  Disease  and  alcoholism  are  chief  among  them.  The 
life  is  so  strenuous,  and  the  special  influences  producing  physi- 
cal deterioration  so  numerous  and  potent,  that  the  woman's  use- 
fulness in  her  occupation  becomes  rapidly  impaired.  Those  who 
begin  in  the  high-toned  brothel  soon  drop  into  a  lower  stratum, 
and  become  inmates  of  second-rate  establishments.  From  here 
on,  their  downfall  is  rapid.  Fortunately,  many  die  by  the  way, 
the  mortality  among  them  rapidly  increasing  as  they  sink  lower 
and  lower  in  the  scale. 

When  the  depths  are  reached,  the  woman  finds  herself  in  the 
midst  of  the  social  dregs, — that  large  class  of  degenerates  who 
were  originally  recruited  mainly  from  the  lower  strata  of  society, 
comprising  the  female  criminal  refuse  of  the  slums.  A  very  few 
prostitutes  reform — so  few  that  they  are  scarcely  to  be  taken 
into  consideration — and  go  into  other  and  more  respectable 
occupations.  A  considerable  number  of  the  better-class  women 
"  marry  and  settle  down."  More  are  taken  out  by  admirers  and 
**  kept"  for  a  time,  only  to  drop  back  and  join  the  dregs.  A 
certain  proportion  take  up  a  criminal  career,  and  are  lost  to  sight 
as  prostitutes.  Some  leave  the  brothel  and  join  the  army  of 
clandestines.  In  many  instances  prostitution  is  only  occasional. 
Other  means  of  support  failing,  the  woman  is  temporarily  driven 
to  debauchery,  going  back  to  reputable  wage-earning  as  soon 
as  opportunity  permits.  The  "  occasional"  prostitute  is  not  so 
common  in  this  country  as  in  Europe. 

The  report  of  the  New  York  "  Committee  of  Fifteen"  esti- 
mates the  average  duration  of  prostitution  as  about  six  years ; 
but,  taken  all  in  all,  the  estimation  of  the  duration  of  the  shame- 
ful careers  and  longevity  of  prostitutes  is  one  of  the  most  diffi- 
cult of  problems.  The  most  we  are  justified  in  sayine:  is,  that 
the  professional  life  of  the  prostitute  is  nec<:ssarily   relatively 


364  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

short  and  her  longevity  decreased  by  the  exigencies  of  her 
"  business." 

In  regard  to  the  longevity  of  the  prostitute,  Lombroso's 
opinion  is  the  opposite  of  that  expressed  above.  He  claims 
that  it  is  greater  in  the  Parisian  prostitute  than  in  the  average 
Parisienne.^  Great  observer  though  he  is,  logical  reflection  and 
the  impossibility  of  obtaining  accurate  statistics  give  one  the 
privilege  of  doubting  his  conclusions. 

The  question  of  longevity  of  prostitutes  is  of  necessity  a 
factor  in  the  determination  of  their  relative  proportion  in  a  given 
social  system.  Obviously,  an  enormous  number  of  recruits  is 
necessary  to  fulfil  the  demand  and  replace  those  lost  in  battle. 
The  question  here  arises :  Granting  that  prostitution  is  un- 
avoidable under  present  conditions,  is  not  the  preservation  of 
the  health  of  the  prostitute  conservative,  and  would  not  an  in- 
crease in  her  longevity  protect  the  virtue  of  those  from  whose 
ranks  recruits  must  necessarily  be  drawn  ? 

NUMBER   OF   PROSTITUTES 

The  number  of  prostitutes  in  any  given  community  is  im- 
possible of  estimation.  Sanger,  some  decades  since,  said  that 
there  were  ten  thousand  professionals  in  New  York  City,  and 
several  times  that  number  of  clandestines.  Thirty  years  ago, 
Lecour  claimed  thirty  thousand  for  Paris,  only  four  thousand  of 
whom  were  registered.  There  are  six  thousand  registered  now. 
Vienna  has  some  twenty-five  or  thirty  thousand.  Of  these,  only 
two  thousand  four  hundred  were  registered  in  1896.  In  1890, 
Neumann  estimated  that  there  were  fifty  thousand  in  Berlin, 
three  thousand  and  sixty-three  of  which  were  registered.  It  is 
probable  that  while  the  large  cities  of  America  do  not  differ 
much  in  their  proportions  of  prostitutes,  they  are  smaller  than  in 
European  cities.  The  obstacles  to  census-taking  among  prosti- 
tutes are  great,  even  in  Europe ;  they  are  practically  hisur- 
mountable   in   America.     A   recent   estimate   of  prostitutes   in 

'  The  Female  Offender. 


SEXUAL    VICE    AND    CRIME  365 

New  York  City  puts  the  figures  at  twelve  to  fifteen  thousand, 
with  two  thousand  houses  of  prostitution.  This  is  absurdly 
low — a  veritable  "  whitewash"  estimate. 


ETIOLOGIC    INFLUENCE   OF    DISEASE 

That  actual  physical  disease  is  a  factor  in  the  causation  of 
the  social  evil,  and  sexual  vice  and  crime  in  general,  is  patent 
enough  to  the  medical  man.  Aberrant  development  or  disease 
of  the  cerebellum  is  probably  important  here.  Irritative  and 
inflammatory  affections  of  the  sexual  organs  in  women  cause 
nymphomania,  and  in  men  produce  its  correlative,  inordinate 
sexual  desire,  which  by  its  effect  on  the  brain  may  develop  into 
furor  sexualis.  The  libidinous  propensities  of  both  old  and 
young  men,  and  especially  the  former,  are  often  due  to  prostatic 
disease,  producing  not  only  local  irritation,  but  reflexly  a  con- 
stant psycho-sexual  erethism.  Relief  of  the  prostatic  difficulty 
often  has  a  marvellous  effect  upon  the  morals  of  the  subject, 
and  relieves  an  insatiable  sexual  craving,  which  is  only  aggra- 
vated by  indulgence.  An  instillation  of  nitrate  of  silver  or  a 
prostatic  massage  is  often  more  effective  than  a  dozen  sermons. 
The  surgeon's  knife  is  sometimes  corrective  of  female  depravity 
by  removing  sources  of  reflex  psycho-sexual  hyperesthesia. 

RELATIONS   OF   THE   POLICE   TO    PROSTITUTION 

The  system  of  reciprocity  existing  between  the  police  and 
prostitutes  of  large  American  cities  is  one  of  the  most  potent 
factors  in  maintaining  the  social  evil.  The  "  Committee  of 
Fifteen"  that  investigated  conditions  in  New  York  City,  in  1901, 
proved  beyond  peradventure  of  doubt  the  existence  of  such  a 
system.  Immunity  from  arrest  is  exchanged  for  a  share  of  the 
profits  of  vice.  As  the  Committee  said,  in  its  report,  "  When  a 
house  containing  not  more  than  ten  inmates  could  afford  to  pay 
five  hundred  dollars  '  initiation  fee'  to  the  '  wardman,'  and  fifty 
dollars  per  month  for  subsequent  police  '  protection,'  some  esti- 
mate can  be  formed  of  the  extent  of  the  trade.  The  occasional 
honest  policeman  has  no  chance  to  exhibit  efficiency  under  such 


366  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

a  system.  Should  he  become  officious,  he  is  transferred  for  the 
*  good  of  the  service,'  "  * 

For  some  years  the  "  cadet"  system  has  flourished  in  New 
York.  The  cadet  is  a  young  man  who  makes  a  business  of 
seducing  young  girls.  He  stops  at  nothing.  The  saloon  with 
the  room  attachment  and  drugged  liquor  play  an  important  part 
in  his  nefarious  occupation.  The  girl  is  finally  placed  in  a  house 
of  prostitution,  in  which  she  is  given  a  twenty-five  cent  check 
for  each  of  her  patrons.  At  stated  intervals  the  cadet  appears, 
takes  the  checks  from  her,  and  gets  them  cashed  by  the  house. 
Should  the  girl  escape,  she  prefers  street-walking  to  facing  her 
friends.  The  police  have  long  been  in  touch  with  this  system. 
It  was  also  found  by  the  Committee  that  the  police  fostered 
prostitution  in  tenement  houses.  The  resulting  effect  of  the 
social  evil  upon  the  children  of  the  crowded  tenements  may  be 
imagined.  The  New  York  Police  Commissioner  appeared  be- 
fore the  "Cities'  Committee,"  at  Albany  (April,  1901),  and 
protested  stoutly  against  the  claim  that  there  were  disorderly 
tenements  in  his  jurisdiction.  It  was  proved  that  they  existed 
in  the  very  street  in  which  he  himself  resided. 

New  York  is  in  no  wise  different  from  many  other  great 
cities.  The  periodic  "  round-ups"  of  street-walkers  in  Chicago 
are  among  the  most  pitiful  of  farces.  The  "  fines"  inflicted  upon 
the  poor  creatures  are,  as  Mr.  Dooley  said  of  Christian  Science, 
'•  Wan  way  av  gittin'  the  money."  The  "  bail  bond"  is  mightier 
than  the  sand-bag.  The  lot  of  the  nymph  du  pave  who  does  not 
come  to  an  understanding  with  the  patrolman  is  a  most  unhappy 
one.  The  recent  investigations  of  the  "  graft  commission" 
showed  plainly  the  relations  of  the  police  to  disreputable  houses. 

Once  upon  a  time  a  queer  state  of  things  existed  in  Chicago. 
The  social  evil  was  utilized  for  revenue  with  a  vengeance.  The 
salaries  of  the  police  were  mainly  drawn  from  "  pulling"  and 
fining  the  keepers  and  inmates  of  brothels.  A  policeman  was 
furnished  with  "  expense"  money  and  assigned  the  duty  of 
getting  evidence  per  vias  natiirales.     Levying  by  the  police  is 

'The  Social  Evil.     Putnam's  Sons. 


SEXUAL   VICE   AND   CRIME  367 

still  going  on,  but,  so  far  as  known,  it  is  not  official.    The  emi- 
nent jurist.  Judge  Murray  F.  Tuley,  once  remarked:'-* 

"  There  has  been  during  nearly  every  administration  of  this  city 
government  for  the  last  thirty  years  a  most  infamous  practice, — that  of 
making  the  social  evil  a  source  of  revenue  for  the  police  justices,  the 
professional  bailers,  the  police  court  shysters,  and  the  harpies  who  hang 
on  to  and  drag  these  poor  women  down  to  a  deeper  perdition — the 
practice  of  pulling  bawdy  houses  for  the  benefit  of  a  particular  class 
of  people ;  and  it  is  a  shame  and  a  disgrace  that  the  moral  tone  of 
Chicago  has  never  been  strong  enough  to  demand  that  this  degrading 
practice  should  be  forever  abandoned." 

CRIMINAL   ABORTION    AND    ILLEGITIMATE    PARENTAGE 

The  most  terrible  result  of  sexual  vice  is  abortion.  It  is 
germane  to  the  subject  of  prostitution,  and  can  be  more  logically 
discussed  in  connection  with  it  than  elsewhere. 

The  practice  of  abortion  is,  in  a  sense,  a  causal  factor  of 
prostitution,  by  oflFering  an  avenue  of  escape  from  the  chief 
dangers  of  illicit  sexuality.  That  it  is  a  frequent  result  of  pros- 
titution is  indisputable.  That  it  is  not  more  frequent  is  due  to 
the  fact  that,  as  a  consequence  of  septic  early  abortions  and  gon- 
orrheal infection,  the  prostitute  sooner  or  later  becomes  sterile. 

The  newspapers  foster  infanticide  by  publishing  abortionists' 
advertisements,  that  he  who  runs  may  read,  thus  offering  an 
easy  method  of  escape  from  the  penalties  of  indiscretion.  Such 
advertisements  put  a  premium  upon  sexual  vice  and  the  slaugh- 
ter of  innocents.  The  newspaper  that  chronicles  the  trial  and 
conviction  of  some  poor  starveling  of  a  doctor  who  has  been 
caught  red-handed,  and  perhaps  contains  editorials  expressing 
abhorrence  for  the  criminal  and  his  horrible  deed,  presents  in 
another  column  the  announcement  that  Madame  X.  is  ready  for 
business  at  the  old  stand,  and  will  remove  all  "  obstructions" 
for  five  dollars — money  down,  in  case  of  death.  Such  adver- 
tising will  continue  until  some  newspaper  is  convicted  as  ac- 
cessory before  the  fact  in  a  murder  trial.  The  plea  that  the 
management  of  any  given  newspaper  does  not  know  what  sucli 

*  Transactions  Sunset  Club,  1893. 


368  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

advertisements  mean  deceives  no  one.  The  chief  of  the  adver- 
tising department  is  no  more  misled  by  the  wording  of  the 
advertisement  than  he  is  by  the  specious  paid  announcements  of 
"  massage  parlors."  He  certainly  is  as  discerning  as  the  persons 
whose  patronage  the  advertisements  are  designed  to  attract. 

The  familiar  cry  of  "  public  demand"  would  fit  the  abortion 
business  better  than  it  does  some  other  things.  The  evil  is 
widespread,  both  in  and  out  of  matrimony.  Its  existence  is 
recognized  under  the  rose  as  a  social  necessity,  yet  the  law  calls 
it  murder.  For  every  man  and  woman  who  is  caught  in  its 
commission  and  punished,  a  thousand  escape  detection.  The 
weakling  family  doctor,  faced  by  the  hazard  of  losing  a  profitable 
client,  sometimes  feels  compelled  to  commit  a  crime  for  a  mar- 
ried woman  who  has  no  valid  excuse  for  interfering  with  the 
course  of  nature.  The  more  fashionable  the  clientele,  the  oftener 
and  greater  the  temptation.  In  some  small  communities  abor- 
tion is  considered  a  part  of  the  doctor's  regular  business.  Should 
a  serious  or  fatal  accident  happen,  it  is  merely  an  incident  in 
practice.  The  man  or  woman  who  commits  the  same  crime  on 
some  poor  woman  whose  reputation  depends  on  her  ridding  her- 
self of  the  fruits  of  her  indiscretion  is  placed  in  a  different  posi- 
tion. Should  a  fatal  or  serious  complication  arise,  those  who 
employ  the  abortionist  usually  leave  him  in  the  lurch,  and  to 
jail  he  goes. 

That  criminal  abortion  should  be  visited  by  severe  penalties 
of  law  is  well ;  indeed,  it  is  necessary  to  the  integrity  of  a  social 
system  that  must  keep  up  its  "  bluff"  though  the  heavens  fall, 
but  there  is  an  element  of  unfairness  in  the  dispensation  of 
punishment,  which  at  once  suggests  itself  to  the  thoughtful 
mind.  Whether  this  unfairness  is  necessary  or  not,  is  another 
question.  Lombroso  says  that  abortion  is  a  social  institution  in 
America,  and  alludes  to  the  barefaced  advertisements  of  abor- 
tionists in  our  newspapers.^"  From  his  point  of  view,  the  pun- 
ishment of  the  abortionist  who  is  caught  must  seem  unfair  and 
unjust  indeed. 

"The  Female  Offender. 


SEXUAL   VICE   AND   CRIME  369 

In  the  management  of  vice  and  crime,  society  is  often  com- 
pelled to  choose  between  two  evils.  A  wrong  to  the  individual 
may  be  the  lesser  of  these — society  must  be  protected  at  any 
cost.  The  procreation  of  children  outside  the  pale  of  matrimony 
is  in  strict  conformity  with  natural  law,  but  it  is  distinctly  anti- 
social, a  breach  of  the  ethics  of  social  artificialism,  and  a  menace 
to  matrimony,  which,  beneficent  institution  as  it  is,  is  one  of  the 
most  arbitrary  and  artificial  inventions  of  society.  Illegitimacy 
is  a  menace  to  the  home  and  to  fundamental  property  rights.  It 
shakes  the  moral  code  to  its  very  foundations,  yet  the  laws  bear- 
ing upon  it,  both  written  and  unwritten,  are  the  crudest  ever 
devised  by  man,  because  of  the  helplessness  of  the  principal 
victim,  the  unborn  child.  Worse  than  the  brand  of  Cain  is  the 
brand  of  "  bastard,"  a  word  that  should  be  stricken  out  of  every 
language.  How  pitiful  the  thought  that  there  is  no  way  to  right 
the  wrong  to  unborn  innocence  and  yet  avoid  the  evils  of 
illegitimacy. 

The  necessary  evils  of  our  prohibitive  laws  and  ethics  bearing 
upon  illegitimacy  are  obvious, — viz. : 

1.  First  and  worst  is  infanticide,  committed  usually  before, 
but  only  too  often  after,  birth.  In  the  latter  category  I  would 
place  abandoned  children  who  die  of  exposure  or  starvation, 
and  the  bulk  of  mortalities  in  foundling  asylums  and  "  baby 
farms."  The  social  ostracism  placed  upon  the  woman  is  a  prime 
factor  in  this  child  murder.  Condemnation  and  shame  are  hers 
if  she  allows  nature  to  take  its  course,  and  the  penalty  of  in- 
fanticide stares  her  in  the  face  if  she  interferes  with  the  con- 
ception.   A  rather  anomalous  state  of  aflfairs  this. 

2.  The  brand  of  infamy  placed  upon  the  unborn  child,  from 
which  only  its  murder  can  save  it. 

3.  The  prostitution  or  suicide  of  the  woman  who  is  found 
out. 

4.  Multitudinous  diseased  and  crippled  women  in  all  social 
systems,  where  abortion  is  practised.  In  many  instances  abor- 
tion results  directly  in  the  death  of  the  woman. 

Such  are  the  consequences  resulting  from  the  conflict  be- 
tween ungoverned  natural  law,  on  the  one  side,  and  moral  and 

24 


370  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

statutory  law,  on  the  other.  That  these  evils  are  less  than  those 
which  would  necessarily  result  from  the  abrogation  of  the  law 
is  probably  true.  I  am  simply  stating  the  price  that  the  arch 
hypocrite,  Society,  pays  for  its  safety  in  this  particular  direction. 

Abortion  in  the  matrimonial  relation  is  a  crime  in  comparison 
with  which  infanticide  outside  the  pale  is  philanthropy  itself. 
Nothing  but  disease  menacing  the  life  or  health  of  the  mother, 
or  unequivocally  insuring  the  physical  uselessness  of  the  pros- 
pective child,  can  warrant  interference.  That  the  mother's 
physical  interests  should  always  be  conserved  most  physicians 
will  agree.  Even  here,  counsel  should  be  sought.  That  a  multi- 
plicity of  children  in  poverty-stricken  families  often  impels  to 
abortion  is  evident,  but  while  sympathy  may  be  extended,  con- 
donation must  not  be.  Whether  children  of  known  syphilitic 
parents  should  be  allowed  to  come  into  the  world  is  an  open 
question.  Personally,  I  do  not  believe  that,  where  both  parents 
are  actively  syphilitic,  the  best  interests  of  either  the  child  or 
society  are  conserved  by  its  birth. 

The  physician  who  is  induced  to  commit  an  abortion  upon  a 
married  woman,  merely  to  suit  her  convenience  and  to  conciliate 
a  valuable  patient,  cannot  be  too  severely  censured.  His  duty 
is  to  explain  the  criminal  nature  of  the  operation,  and  impress 
upon  the  woman  and  her  husband  the  manifold  dangers  to  life 
and  health  following  it.  Young  couples  should  be  especially 
warned  against  such  an  evil  beginning  for  their  married  life. 

It  must  be  confessed  that  an  element  of  sympathy  is  naturally 
evoked  by  the  mental  distress  of  the  unfortunate  woman  who 
is  extra-matrimonially  pregnant.  The  question  as  to  whether 
the  shame  of  the  woman  and  the  bastardy  of  the  child  are  not  a 
worse  crime  than  abortion  is  a  pertinent  one,  but  the  laws  were 
made  to  be  obeyed,  and  who  shall  be  judge,  and  who  execu- 
tioner, in  such  cases? 

The  reputable  practitioner  appealed  to  in  such  cases  certainly 
should  not  be  blinded  by  any  mercenary  consideration.  Should 
his  sympathies  be  aroused,  he  must  remember  that,  indepen- 
dently of  the  moral  aspect  of  the  act  which  he  is  asked  to 
commit,  the  principle  of  self-defence  prohibits  his  committing  it. 


SEXUAL   VICE   AND   CRIME  371 

Criminal  abortion  is  a  penitentiary  offence.  No  one  has  the 
right  to  demand  that  a  physician  perform  it,  any  more  than  to 
request  him  to  commit  any  other  statutory  crime.  He  who 
balances  a  fee  or  his  sympathies  for  others  against  the  possible 
loss  of  his  own  reputation,  and  perhaps  his  liberty,  is  a  fool. 

The  murder  of  children  after  birth  is  worthy  of  serious  con- 
sideration in  connection  with  the  general  subject  of  sexual 
crimes.  It  is  one  of  the  most  vital  points  in  the  crime  and  vice 
problem.  Branded  with  ignominy  from  the  moment  of  con- 
ception, a  burden  to  society  and  a  still  greater  burden  to  its 
parent  or  parents  from  the  moment  of  its  birth ;  with  no  system- 
atic endeavor  on  the  part  of  society  to  prevent  it  from  growing 
up  a  criminal,  a  drunkard,  a  pauper,  a  prostitute,  or  a  physical 
wreck ;  what  wonder  that  many  a  poor  woman's  fingers  become 
too  tightly  entwined  around  her  offspring's  neck?  If  her  motive 
for  the  act  were  always  as  altruistic  as  its  consequences,  so  far 
as  the  child's  welfare  is  concerned,  there  are  some  clear-minded 
thinkers  in  the  world  who  could  not  be  brought  to  judge  her 
harshly.  If  social  altruism  were  alone  to  be  considered,  the 
world  would  be  lenient  enough  with  some  child  murderers.  That 
an  occasional  woman  may  kill  her  illegitimate  child  out  of  kind- 
ness for  it  is  probable.  But  the  motive  is  usually  a  selfish  one ; 
the  murderess  is  merely  protecting  herself,  and  society  cannot 
tolerate  the  carrying  of  the  principle  of  self-defence  to  extremes. 
Neither  does  it  dare  to  discriminate  to  the  fineness  of  a  hair 
between  murderers.  Fortunately,  the  maternal  impulse  is  usu- 
ally too  strong  in  the  normal  woman  to  permit  her  committing 
infanticide.  The  majority  of  the  really  unfortunate  women 
who  give  birth  to  illegitimate  children  plead  to  be  allowed  to 
keep  their  offspring. 

That  society  shirks  the  duty  it  owes  to  illegitimate  children 
is  patent  to  every  thinking  mind.  The  State  is  in  duty  bound  to 
stand  in  loco  parentis  to  the  illegitimate  child.  How  does  it  fulfil 
its  obligation?  Bastardy  is  made  a  quasi-criminal  offence,  that 
can  be  "  squared"  for  a  stipulated  sum  of  money.  Tliis  sum  is 
based  upon  the  presumed  necessities  of  the  child.  The  reputed 
father  is  placed  under  bond  to  pay  into  court  for  the  support  of 


372  THE   DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

the  child  one  hundred  dollars  for  the  first  year,  and  fifty  dollars 
for  each  subsequent  year  for  a  period  of  nine  years.  Should  he 
wish  to  do  so,  he  may  compromise  and  pay  four  hundred  dollars 
in  full  settlement.  This  settlement  may  be  made  with  the 
woman  out  of  court,  and  absolves  the  man  from  all  future  obli- 
gations. Society  is  also  absolved  from  all  further  responsibility, 
and,  with  its  usual  asininity,  fancies  that  all  bills  are  paid.  So 
far,  Illinois. 

The  absurdity  and  cruelty  of  such  laws  are  at  once  manifest. 
A  legal  premium  is  put  upon  blackmail.  An  occasional  trusting 
and  betrayed  woman  takes  advantage  of  the  law,  it  is  true,  but, 
in  most  cases,  the  woman  simply  chooses  from  among  several 
possible  fathers  the  one  who  is  most  likely  to  be  productive  be- 
cause of  his  social  and  financial  standing.  Having  selected  the 
most  suitable  victim  for  her  "  mace,"  she  bobs  up  in  court  as  an 
example  of  injured  innocence,  which  is  open,  and  the  law  says 
may  be  open,  to  that  sovereign  legal  panacea  for  virtue  wrecked, 
— money,  vulgar  money.  The  four  hundred  dollars — which  so 
munificently  guarantees  the  support  and  education  of  the  child 
until  such  time  as  it  may  be  able  to  support  itself — having  been 
paid,  the  woman  proceeds  to  dispose  of  her  ill-starred  offspring 
as  quickly  as  possible,  and  with  little  regard  to  humanitarian 
methods.  Should  the  child  survive,  which,  fortunately,  it  does 
not  often  do  for  long,  it  becomes  a  burden  on  the  community. 
Whether  criminal,  physical  degenerate,  idiot,  pauper,  or  pros- 
titute, the  illegitimate  child  is  a  luxury  for  which  society  must 
pay  dearly.  The  poor  little  bastard  avenges  itself  sooner  or 
later,  and  society  foots  the  bills. 

DEGENERACY    AND   PROSTITUTION 

The  physical  basis  of  prostitution  is  just  now  attracting  much 
attention.  The  researches  of  Lombroso,  Tarnowsky,  and  others 
have  been  claimed  to  show  that  the  prostitute  has  special  features 
of  degeneracy.  These  have  been  discussed  elsewhere  in  connec- 
tion with  the  general  relations  of  degeneracy  to  vice  and  crime, 
and  do  not  require  repetition  here.  I  am  by  no  means  in  accord 
with  the  dogmatic  deductions  which  some  criminal  anthropolo- 


SEXUAL    VICE   AND   CRIME  373 

gists  have  drawn  regarding  the  special  relation  of  degeneracy 
to  prostitution.  The  prostitute  is  merely  one  of  the  various 
products  of  the  conditions  that  produce  crime,  pauperism, 
inebriety,  perverted  sexuality,  and  insanity.  It  is  not  a  physical 
disease,  although  it  may  result  from  it.  It  is  a  social  disease 
and  dependent  upon  certain  conditions  of  the  given  social  system. 
Social  influences,  such  as  poverty  and  adverse  industrial  con- 
ditions, are  more  potent  in  the  etiology  of  prostitution  than  in 
that  of  crime.  Inhibitions  are  less  in  the  case  of  sexual  vice. 
Temptations  are  greater  and  degeneracy  acts  here  with  double 
force.  The  sexuality  of  the  male  has  more  to  do  with  the 
primal  cause  of  prostitution  than  has  the  degeneracy  of  the 
female.  A  vicious  ancestry  and  a  neuropathic  constitution 
underlie  many  cases  of  prostitution,  it  is  true,  but  these  condi- 
tions are,  after  all,  predisposing  causes  that  require  the  special 
agency  of  man  for  their  operation.  The  various  causes  that  build 
prostitution  upon  degeneracy  are  all-powerful,  but  when  given  a 
fair  chance  act  upon  normal  and  degenerate  in  a  like  manner,  if  in 
less  degree.  Prostitution  by  necessity,  or  force,  and  prostitution 
of  young  children  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  degeneracy  of  the 
victim.    Social  and  masculine  degeneracy  are  responsible  here. 

Again,  the  element  of  physiologic  impulse  on  the  part  of  the 
female  comes  into  play.  That  the  illegitimate  performance  of 
the  sexual  act  is  necessarily  a  manifestation  of  degeneracy  I  am 
not  prepared  to  believe,  unless,  indeed,  we  take  an  arbitrary 
moral  and  social  standard  for  physical  normality.  That  many 
prostitutes  are  to  the  manner  born  is  true ;  that  most  of  them, 
whether  prostitutes  born  or  bred,  are  irreclaimable  is  also  true, 
but  that  in  most  cases  prevention  of  prostitution  was  absolutely 
impossible  is  absurd,  unless  the  entire  responsibility  is  to  be 
laid  at  the  woman's  door. 

I  have  elsewhere  expatiated  upon  the  fallacy  of  deductions 
drawn  from  the  study  of  a  limited  and  specialized  number  of  a 
great  class.  Many  of  the  phenomena  showing  a  variance  of  the 
prostitute  from  the  normal  average  standard  are  incidental  to 
her  occupation,  on  the  one  hand,  and  to  over-enthusiasm  of  the 
investigator,  on  the  other. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

SEXUAL  VICE  AND  CRIME — Continued 
Sexual  Psychopathy — Satyriasis  and  Nymphomania 

No  discussion  of  sexual  vice  and  crime  is  even  approximately 
complete  that  does  not  comprise  the  various  phases  of  sexual 
psychopathy.  Sexual  perversion  and  the  varying  forms  of  dis- 
ease characterized  by  aberrations  of  erotic  impulse  are  of  the 
greatest  importance  in  their  criminologic,  social,  and  medico- 
legal aspects. 

Sexual  perversion  and  inversion  have  until  recently  been 
studied  solely  from  a  moral  stand-point,  and  their  unfortunate 
victims  have  often  been  unjustly  viewed  as  moral  perverts  in- 
stead of  sufferers  from  a  physical  and,  incidentally,  a  mental 
defect — or,  in  brief,  from  psycho-sexual  aberration.  The  atten- 
tion of  scientific  physicians  has  recently  been  directed  to  the 
subject,  and  some  very  startling  facts  have  been  developed. 
The  physical  explanation  of  the  degradation  of  many  of  these 
poor  unfortunates  should  be  far  less  humiliating  to  the  social 
optimist  than  the  theory  of  wilful  viciousness  could  possibly  be. 
Even  for  the  moralist  there  should  be  much  consolation  in  the 
fact  that  a  large  class  of  sexual  perverts  is  physically  abnormal 
rather  than  morally  leprous.  It  is,  of  course,  often  difficult  to 
draw  the  line  of  demarcation  between  psycho-physical  and  moral 
perversion.  Indeed,  the  one  is  often  so  dependent  on  the  other 
that  it  is  doubtful  whether  it  were  wise  to  attempt  the  distinc- 
tion in  many  instances.  But  this  does  not  alter  the  fact  that  the 
true  sexual  pervert  or  invert  is  generally  a  physical  aberration — 
a  lusus  naturae. 

Krafft-Ebing  expresses  himself  upon  this  point  as  follows: 

"  In   former  years   I   considered   sexual   perversion   as   a  result   of 
neuro-psychic    degeneration,    and    I   believe   this    view    is    warranted   by 
more  recent  investigations.    As  we  study  into  the  abnormal  and  diseased 
374 


SEXUAL    PSYCHOPATHY  375 

conditions  from  which  this  malady  results,  the  ideas  of  horror  and 
criminality  connected  with  it  disappear,  and  there  arises  in  our  minds 
the  sense  of  duty  to  investigate  what  at  first  sight  seems  repulsive,  and 
to  distinguish,  it  may  be,  between  a  perversion  of  natural  instincts  which 
is  the  result  of  disease,  and  the  criminal  offences  of  a  perverted  mind 
against  the  laws  of  morality  and  social  decency.  It  would  not  be  the 
first  time  that  science  has  rendered  a  service  to  justice  and  society  by 
teaching  that  what  seem  to  be  immoral  conditions  and  actions  are  but 
the  result  of  disease." 

That  sexual  perversion  is  not  to  be  studied  solely  from  a 
moral  point  of  view  is  shown  by  its  existence  in  the  lower  ani- 
mals, in  whom  it  is  a  matter  of  common  observation.  Fowls, 
for  example,  have  been  observed  to  act  the  role  of  male  or 
female  indifferently,  although  apparently  normal  in  every  respect. 
The  confirmatory  bearing  of  such  observations  upon  the  atavistic 
view  of  sexual  perversion  and  inversion  in  the  human  species 
must  be  admitted. 

There  are  in  every  large  community  colonies  of  male  sexual 
perverts  and  inverts,  who  are  usually  known  to  each  other,  and 
who  usually  congregate  together.  They  often  operate  in  accord- 
ance with  some  definite  and  concerted  plan  in  quest  of  subjects 
wherewith  to  gratify  their  abnormal  sexual  impulses.  They  are 
frequently  characterized  by  effeminacy  of  voice,  dress,  and  man- 
ner. In  a  general  way,  their  physique  is  apt  to  be  inferior — a 
defective  physical  make-up  being  quite  general  among  them, 
although  exceptions  to  this  rule  are  numerous.  Sexual  perver- 
sion, and  more  particularly  inversion, — i.e.,  homosexuality,  or 
sexual  predilection  for  the  same  sex, — is  more  frequent  in 
the  male.  Public  women  often  adopt  imnatural  sexual  habits 
for  the  purpose  of  pandering  to  the  depraved  tastes  of  their 
patrons  rather  than  from  true  perversion.  Many  female  inverts 
are  met  with,  however.  For  example,  there  are  numerous  in- 
stances of  women  of  perfect  physique,  moving  in  good  society, 
who  have  a  fondness  for  women  and  are  never  sexually  attracted 
to  men.  There  are  numerous  cases  in  which  the  female  is  sex- 
ually attracted  by  women,  yet  has  a  perverted  desire  for  the 
opposite  sex.  In  general,  inversion  is  less  likely  than  perver- 
sion to  be  the  result  of  depravity. 


376  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

In  discussing  sexual  psychopathy,  I  will  exclude  certain 
cases,  occurring  especially  in  women,  but  not  limited  to  them, 
in  which  what  is  erroneously  believed  to  be  perversion  consists 
of  extraordinary  manifestations  of  endearment  or  exaggerated 
normal  desire  inhibiting  the  instinctive  reserve  of  the  female. 
This  occurs  in  perfectly  normal  women,  often  in  those  who  are 
absolutely  inexperienced,  and  in  whom  the  apparently  perverted 
indulgence  is  dependent  upon  the  ignorant  abandon  of  passion. 
Not  a  few  women  who  are  sexually  normal  have  the  same  im- 
pulse to  amorous  extravagances,  but  are  restrained  by  motives 
of  delicacy,  which  motives  are  usually  innate  perhaps,  but  not 
infrequently  politic  and  based  upon  worldly  knowledge.  That 
atavism  is  also  often  a  factor  here  is  obvious. 

Sexual  perversion  may  be  defined,  in  a  general  way,  as  the 
possession  of  impulses  to  sexual  gratification  in  an  abnormal 
manner,  with  a  partial  or  complete  apathy  towards  the  normal 
method.    It  may  be  classified  etiologically  as  follows : 

1.  Congenital  and  perhaps  hereditary  sexual  perversion. 

(o)  Sexual  perversion  without  defect  of  structure  of  the  sexual 
organs,  due  to  aberrant  psycho-sexual  differentiation. 

(b)  Sexual   perversion   with   defect  of   genital    structure ;     e.g., 

hermaphroditism.  Here,  aberrant  differentiation  of  sex 
is  both  physical  and  psychic. 

(c)  Sexual  perversion  with  obvious  defect  of  cerebral  develop- 

ment ;    e.g.,  idiocy. 

2.  Acquired  sexual  perversion. 

(a)  Sexual  perversion  from  pregnancy,  the  menopause,  ovarian 

disease,  hysteria,  etc. 

(b)  Sexual  perversion  from  acquired  cerebral  disease,  with  or 

without  recognized  insanity. 

(c)  Sexual  perversion — "perversity"   (?) — from  vice. 

(d)  Sexual  perversion  from  overstimulation  and  resulting  an- 

esthesia of  the  nerves  of  sexual  sensibility  and  the  re- 
ceptive sexual  centres,  incidental  to  sexual  excesses  and 
masturbation. 

As  regards  the  clinical  manifestations  of  the  disease,  sexual 
perverts  may  be  classified  as — 

(a)  Those  having  a  predilection  (affinity)  for  their  own 
sex — sexual  inversion — homosexuality. 


SEXUAL   PSYCHOPATHY  377 

(b)  Those  having  a  predilection  for  abnormal  methods  of 
gratification  with  the  opposite  sex. 

(c)  Those  affected  with  bestiality,  with  or  without  coex- 
istent normal  desire. 

Instances  of  all  these  different  varieties  have  been  observed. 

Although  the  foregoing  classification  was  published  some 
years  ago,  I  have  had  no  occasion  to  modify  it.  It  still  appeals 
to  me  as  a  practical  working  classification.  Its  acceptance  by 
my  distinguished  co-worker,  Havelock  Ellis,  has  by  no  means 
lessened  my  confidence  in  its  practicality. 

The  precise  causes  of  sexual  perversion  are  obscure.  The 
explanation  of  the  phenomenon  is,  in  a  general  way,  much  more 
definite.  Just  as  variation  of  physical  form  and  of  mental  attri- 
butes, in  general,  may  occur,  so  may  variations  and  perversions 
of  that  intangible  entity,  sexual  affinity.  In  some  cases,  perhaps, 
sexual  differentiation  has  been  imperfect,  and  there  is  a  rever- 
sion of  type.    As  Kiernan  remarks : 

"  The  original  bi-sexuality  of  the  ancestors  of  the  race,  shown  in 
the  rudimentary  female  organs  of  the  male,  could  not  fail  to  occasion 
functional,  if  not  organic,  reversions  when  mental  or  physical  manifes- 
tations were  interfered  with  by  disease  or  congenital  defect.  The  in- 
hibitions on  excessive  action  to  accomplish  a  given  purpose,  which  the 
race  has  acquired  through  centuries  of  evolution,  being  removed,  the 
animal  in  man  springs  to  the  surface.  Removal  of  these  inhibitions 
produces,  among  other  results,  sexual  perversion." 

Reasoning  back  to  cell-life,  we  find  many  variations  of  sexual 
affinity  and  the  function  of  reproduction  between  the  primal 
segmentation  of  the  cell — the  lowest  type  of  procreative  action 
— and  that  complete  and  perfect  differentiation  of  the  sexes 
which  requires  a  definite  act  of  sexual  congress  as  a  manifesta- 
tion of  the  acme  of  the  reproductive  impulse.  The  variations 
in  the  method  of  sexual  gratification — or,  to  attribute  it  to  pro- 
creative  instinct,  of  perpetuating  the  species — presented  to  the 
student  of  natural  history  are  numerous  and  striking.  The 
procreation  of  fishes  is  a  curious  phenomenon.  It  is  difficult  to 
appreciate  the  sexual  gratification  involved  in  the  deposition  of 


378  THE   DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

the  milt  of  the  male  fish  upon  the  spawn  of  the  female,  yet  that 
the  so-called  instinctive  act  of  the  male  is  unattended  by  grati- 
fication is  improbable.  Indeed,  it  is  an  argument  as  applicable 
to  the  lower  animals  as  to  man  that,  were  the  act  of  procreation 
divested  of  its  pleasurable  features,  the  species  would  speedily 
become  extinct ;  for  the  act  of  procreation  per  se  is  possessed 
of  no  features  of  attractiveness,  and  many  that  are  repulsive  or 
even  productive  of  discomfort. 

It  is  puzzling  to  the  healthy  man  or  woman  to  understand 
how  the  practices  of  the  sexual  pervert  can  afford  gratification. 
If  considered  in  the  light  of  reversion  of  type,  however,  the 
subject  is  much  less  perplexing. 

That  maldevelopment,  or  arrested  development,  of  the  sexual 
organs  should  be  associated  with  sexual  perversion  is  not  at  all 
surprising ;  and  the  more  nearly  the  individual  approximates 
the  type  of  fetal  development  that  exists  prior  to  the  commence- 
ment of  sexual  diflFerentiation,  the  more  marked  is  the  aberrance 
of  sexuality.  Studies  of  so-called  hermaphroditism  demonstrate 
this. 

There  is  one  element  in  the  study  of  sexual  perversion  that 
deserves  special  attention.  It  is  probable  that  few  bodily  attri- 
butes are  more  readily  transmitted  to  posterity  than  peculiari- 
ties of  sexual  physiology.  The  offspring  of  the  abnormally 
carnal  individual  is  likely  to  be  possessed  of  the  same  inordinate 
sexual  appetite  that  characterized  the  parent.  The  child  of  vice 
has  within  it,  in  many  instances,  the  germ  of  vicious  impulse, 
and  no  purifying  influence  can  save  it  from  following  its  own 
inherent  inclinations.  Men  and  women  who  seek,  from  mere 
satiety,  variations  from  the  normal  method  of  sexual  gratifica- 
tion stamp  their  nervous  systems  with  a  malign  influence  which 
in  the  next  generation  may  present  itself  as  true  sexual  perver- 
sion. Acquired  sexual  perversion  in  one  generation  may  thus  be 
a  true  constitutional  and  irradicable  aberrancy  in  the  next,  and 
this  independently  of  gross  physical  aberrations.  This  involves 
the  question  of  transmission  of  acquired  traits.  The  author 
believes  in  such  transmission,  especially  in  respect  to  neuro- 
pathic phenomena. 


SEXUAL    PSYCHOPATHY  379 

Carelessness  on  the  part  of  parents  is  responsible  for  some 
cases  of  acquired  sexual  perversion.  Boys  who  are  allowed  to 
associate  intimately  are  apt  to  turn  their  inventive  genius  to 
account  by  inventing  novel  means  of  sexual  stimulation,  with 
the  result  of  ever  after  diminishing,  or  even  perverting,  the 
natural  sexual  appetite.  Any  powerful  impression  made  upon 
the  sexual  nerve-centres  at  or  near  puberty,  when  the  sexual 
apparatus  is  just  maturing  and  very  active,  although  as  yet 
weak  and  impressionable,  is  likely  to  leave  an  imprint  in  the 
form  of  sexual  peculiarities  that  will  haunt  the  patient  through- 
out his  after-life.  Adolph  Belot  illustrates  this  in  his  "  Mile. 
Giraud,  Ma  Femme."  In  this  novel  the  life  of  a  female  sexual 
pervert  of  boarding-school  manufacture  is  depicted.  Sexual 
congress  at  an  early  period  often  leaves  a  similar  impression. 
Many  an  individual  has  had  reason  to  regret  the  indulgences  of 
his  youth,  because  of  its  moral  effect  upon  his  after-life.  The 
impression  made  upon  his  psycho-sexual  centres  in  the  height 
of  his  youthful  sensibility  is  never  eradicated,  but  remains  in 
his  memory  as  his  ideal  of  sexual  matters ;  for  there  is  a  physi- 
cal as  well  as  an  intellectual  memory.  As  he  grows  older  and 
less  impressionable,  he  seeks  vainly  for  an  experience  similar 
to  that  of  his  youth,  and  so  joins  the  ranks  of  the  sexual  mono- 
maniacs, who  vainly  chase  the  will-o'-the-wisp,  sexual  gratifica- 
tion, all  their  lives.  Variations  of  the  circumstances  under  which 
young  persons  of  either  sex  are  exposed  to  sexual  excitation 
may  determine  sexual  perversion  or  inversion  rather  than  ab- 
normal desire.  Thus  exposure  to  stimulation  by  one  of  the 
same  sex,  or  in  an  abnormal  manner  by  the  opposite  sex,  is 
likely  to  prove  disastrous.  Let  the  physician  who  has  the  confi- 
dence of  his  patients  inquire  into  this  matter,  and  he  will  be 
surprised  at  their  disclosures. 

Excess  brings  in  its  train  a  deterioration  of  normal  sexual 
sensibility,  often  with  an  increase  in  the  sexual  appetite.  Im- 
potency,  associated  with  desire,  sometimes  develops  perversion. 
As  a  result,  the  deluded  and  unfortunate  being  seeks  for  new 
and  varied  means  of  sexual  stimulation,  often  degrading  in  the 
extreme.     Add  to  this  condition  intemperance  or  disease,  and 


38o  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

the  individual  may  become  the  lowest  type  of  sexual  pervert. 
As  Hammond  concisely  puts  it,  regarding  one  of  the  most  dis- 
gusting forms  of  sexual  perversion :  '*  Pederasty  is  generally  a 
vice  resorted  to  by  debauchees  who  have  exhausted  the  sources 
of  the  normal  stimulus  of  the  sexual  act,  and  who  for  a  while 
find  in  this  new  procedure  the  pleasure  which  they  can  no  longer 
obtain  naturally." 

When  differentiation  of  sex  is  complete,  from  a  gross  physi- 
cal stand-point,  the  receptive  and  generative  centres  of  sexual 
sensibility  may  fail  to  become  perfectly  differentiated.  The 
result  is,  upon  the  one  hand,  sexual  apathy,  and,  upon  the  other, 
an  approximation  to  the  female  or  male  type,  as  the  case  may  be. 
Such  a  failure  of  development  and  imperfect  differentiation  of 
nervous  structure  is  necessarily  too  occult  for  discovery  by  any 
physical  means  at  our  command.  It  is,  however,  only  too  readily 
recognized  by  its  results. 

There  exists  in  every  great  city  so  large  a  number  of  sexual 
perverts  from  satiety,  that  seemingly  their  depraved  tastes  have 
been  commercially  appreciated  by  the  female  portion  of  the 
Under  World.  This  has  resulted  in  establishments  whose  prin- 
cipal business  is  to  cater  to  the  perverted  sexual  tastes  of  a 
numerous  class  of  patrons.  Were  the  names  and  social  positions 
of  these  patrons  made  public  in  the  case  of  any  of  our  large 
American  cities,  society  would  be  regaled  with  something 
fully  as  disgusting  as  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette  exposure.  The 
individuals  alluded  to  would  undoubtedly  resent  the  appellation 
of  "  sexual  pervert,"  but,  nevertheless,  in  many  instances  they 
present  the  disease  in  its  most  inexcusable  form,  sheer  depravity. 
Such  moral  difference  as  exists  between  the  patrons  of  such 
women  and  the  unfortunate  victims  of  true  perversion  is  in 
favor  of  the  latter.  The  latter  is  to  be  pitied  for  an  unavoidable 
affliction ;  the  other  should  be  despised  for  his  deliberately  ac- 
quired debasement.  In  the  case  of  the  professional  prostitute 
who  panders  to  the  depraved  tastes  of  certain  males,  she  has,  at 
least,  the  questionable  excuse  of  commercial  instinct,  and  in 
some  cases  the  more  valid  one  of  essential  sexual  perversion. 
These  excuses  the  majority  of  her  patrons  certainly  do  not  have. 


SEXUAL   PSYCHOPATHY  381 

In  an  interesting  discussion  of  the  question  of  sexual  per- 
version in  its  relations  to  evolutionary  reversion,  Clevenger 
claims  that  the  sexual  appetite  is  a  derivative  of  hunger.^  There 
is  much  evidence  in  support  of  this  theory. 

In  a  paper  on  Researches  into  the  Life  History  of  the 
Monads,  by  Dallinger  and  Drysdale,^  fission  of  monads  was 
shown  to  be  preceded  by  the  absorption  of  one  form  by  another. 
One  monad  fixes  on  the  sarcode  of  another,  and  the  substance  of 
the  lesser  or  under  one  passes  into  the  upper.  In  about  two 
hours  the  merest  trace  of  the  lower  is  left,  and  in  four  hours 
fission  and  multiplication  of  the  monad  begins.  Professor  Leidy 
has  asserted  that  the  ameba  is  a  cannibal.  Michels  called  atten- 
tion to  Dallinger  and  Drysdale's  contribution,  and  draws  there- 
from the  inference  that  each  cannibalistic  act  of  the  ameba  is  a 
reproductive  or  copulative  one,  if  this  term  is  admissible. 

Clevenger,  in  commenting  upon  the  foregoing,  says, — 

"  Among  the  numerous  speculations  upon  the  origin  of  sexual  appe- 
tite, I  have  encountered  none  that  referred  its  derivation  to  hunger.  The 
cannibalistic  ameba  may,  as  Dallinger's  monad  certainly  does,  impreg- 
nate itself  by  eating  its  own  kind,  and  we  have  innumerable  instances, 
among  algcE  and  protozoa,  of  this  sexual  fusion  appearing  very  much 
like  ingestion  of  food.  Crabs  have  been  seen  to  confuse  the  two  desires 
by  actually  eating  portions  of  each  other  while  copulating.  The  mantis 
religiosa  female  eats  off  the  head  of  the  male  mantis  during  conjugation. 
In-  some  arachnidae  the  female  finishes  the  marital  repast  by  devouring 
the  male.  The  erotic  bitings  and  even  the  embrace  of  the  higher  animals 
appears  to  have  reference  to  this  derivation. 

"  Association  often  transfers  an  instinct  in  an  apparently  outrageous 
manner.  With  quadrupeds  it  is  most  clearly  olfaction  that  is  most 
related  to  sexual  desire  and  its  reflexes.  This  is  not  so  in  man.  Ferrier 
diligently  searched  the  region  of  the  temporal  lobe,  near  its  connection 
with  the  olfactory  nerve,  for  the  seat  of  sexuality.  With  the  diminished 
importance  of  the  smelling  sense  in  man,  the  faculty  of  sight  has  come 


*  Physiology  and  Psychology,  S.  V.  Clevenger.  Sec  also  The  Evolu- 
tion of  Man  and  his  Mind,  by  the  same  author. 

'  Transactions  Royal  Microscopic  Society,  1873,  ^"<J  Monthly  Micro- 
scopic Journal,  London,  October,  1877. 


382  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

to  vicariate  olfaction ;  certainly  the  '  lust  of  the  eyes'  is  greater  than 
that  of  other  special  sense  organs  among  Bimana." 

"  In  all  animal  life  multiplication  proceeds  from  growth,  and  until 
a  certain  stage  of  growth — puberty — is  reached,  reproduction  does  not 
occur.  The  complementary  nature  of  growth  and  reproduction  is  ob- 
servable in  the  large  size  obtained  by  some  animals  after  castration. 
Could  we  stop  the  division  of  the  ameba,  a  comparable  increase  in  size 
would  be  effected. 

"  It  is  apparent  that  a  primeval  origin  for  both  ingestive  and  sexual 
desire  existed,  and  that  each  is  a  true  hunger,  the  one  being  repressible 
and  in  higher  animal  life  subjected  to  more  control  than  the  other. 

"  It  requires  but  little  reflection  to  convince  us  of  the  potency  of 
hunger  in  determining  the  destiny  of  nations  and  individuals,  and  what 
a  stimulus  it  is  in  animated  creation.  It  seems  likely  that  it  has  its 
origin  in  the  atomic  affinities  of  inanimate  nature,  a  view  monistic 
enough  to  please  even  Haeckel  and  Tyndall." 

Spitzka,  in  commenting  on  the  foregoing,  writes: 

"  Observations  made  by  alienists  tend  to  confirm  Clevenger's  theory. 
Under  pathologic  circumstances,  relations  obliterated  in  higher  develop- 
ment and  absent  in  health  return  and  simulate  conditions  found  in 
lower  and  even  in  primitive  forms.  An  instance  of  this  is  the  pica 
or  morbid  appetite  of  pregnant  women  and  hysterical  girls  for  chalk, 
slate-pencils,  and  other  earthy  substances.  This  has  been  considered  a 
sort  of  reversion  to  an  oviparous  ancestry,  which,  like  the  birds  of  our 
day,  sought  the  calcareous  material  required  for  shell  structure." 

The  confusion  of  hunger  with  the  sexual  appetite  did  not 
escape  the  attention  of  ancient  writers.     Thus  Ovid  says, — 

"  Mulieres  in  coitu  nonnemque  gence  cervicemque  maris  mordunt." 

'  The  author  has  met  with  a  case  where  the  "  lust  of  the  eyes"  pro- 
duced violent  fits  of  sneezing.  This  disappeared  after  cauterizing  the 
turbinates.  In  general,  vision  has  not  altogether  replaced  olfaction  in 
the  sexual  attraction  of  human  beings.  The  habit  of  using  perfumes  by 
women  is  an  unconscious  deference  to  olfactory  sexuality.  In  regard  to 
the  structure  covering  the  turbinates,  it  is  true  erectile  tissue  which,  in 
a  sense,  is  probably  an  evolutionary  vestige  that  may  sometimes  function- 
ate atavistically.  The  impression  necessary  to  develop  this  is  made 
through  the  olfactory  nerves  higher  up.  In  the  case  cited,  the  reflex 
irritation  was  probably  produced  through  olfaction. 


SEXUAL    PSYCHOPATHY  383 

Some  forms  of  sexual  perversion  properly  classed  under  the 
head  of  degenerative  mental  states  show  a  close  relation  between 
hunger  and  the  sexual  appetite.  Kraff  t-Ebing  *  describes  as 
sadism  a  form  of  sexual  perversion  in  which  the  sufferer  finds 
gratification  only  in  biting,  eating,  murder,  or  mutilation  of  the 
mate.  The  Hindoo  myth,  Civa  and  Durga,  shows  that  such 
observations  in  the  sexual  sphere  were  known  to  the  ancients. 
Instances  have  occurred  in  human  beings  where,  after  the  act, 
the  ravisher  butchered  his  victim  and  would  have  eaten  a  piece 
of  the  viscera ;  where  the  criminal  drank  the  blood  and  ate  the 
heart ;  and  where  certain  parts  of  the  body  were  cooked  and 
eaten. 

A  recent  case  occurring  in  Ohio  is  a  graphic  illustration  of 
the  sadistic  form  of  sexual  perversion.  The  subject,  who  was 
executed  for  the  murder  of  a  woman,  confessed  that  she  was  the 
fifth  one  he  had  murdered,  three  of  the  women  having  been  his 
wives.  His  confession  was  not  attended  by  the  slightest  emo- 
tion or  expression  of  the  danger  and  moral  responsibility  in- 
volved in  his  acts.  He  himself  attributed  his  multi-murders  to 
the  domination  of  a  homicidal  mania,  which  irresistibly  impelled 
him  to  shed  the  blood  of  women.  *A  fourth  wife,  to  whom  he 
was  recently  married,  narrowly  escaped  death  at  his  hands. 
With  reference  to  the  escape  of  his  last  wife  from  a  violent 
death  at  his  hands,  the  murderer  said,  in  his  confession, — 

"  I  know  that  she  has  waked  up  several  times  since  we  were  married 
and  found  my  hands  grasping  her  neck  when  I  was  asleep.  She  would 
wake  when  I  grabbed  her,  and  ask  what  I  meant  by  taking  hold  of  her 
neck  in  that  way,  and  I  could  not  tell  her  why,  because  I  was  asleep  and 
did  not  know  I  had  done  it.  Just  last  week  she  woke  up  just  in  time, 
or  she  might  never  have  waked  at  all.  I  had  grabbed  her  so  tight  and 
was  choking  her  that  she  was  nearly  gone  when  she  came  to  and  woke 
me  up." 

The  explanation  the  murderer  gave  of  his  case  is  the  ordinary 
medical  and,  also,  the  popular  one.  It  is,  however,  fallaciou.'^. 
The  restriction  of  his  homicidal  impulses  to  the  female  sex  is  in 

*0p.  cit. 


384  THE   DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

itself  suspicious.  His  multitudinous  marriages,  in  connection 
with  his  sexually  emotional  anesthesia,  is  still  more  suggestive. 
He  said,  in  answer  to  the  question,  "  Ally,  do  you  love  this 
woman  who  is  now  your  wife  ?"  "  Oh,  I  guess  I  love  her  as 
much  as  I  am  capable  of  loving  any  woman.  I  do  not  know  what 
love  means."  His  portrait  shows  a  degenerate  of  a  decidedly 
common  type.     (Fig.  14.) 

Fig.  14. 


i 

P^H 

i 

1 

g^^^^^m 

WmS 

3 

^^^^^1 

^mn^H 

\      . 

^H^^^^^H 

Jn^ta^^^B^MOH 

m 

^hhHhI^H 

SADISTIC  WIKE-MintDERER. 


The  terrible  exploits  of  Jack  the  Ripper,  and  the  mutilation 
of  women  by  rapists,  black  or  white,  and  especially  the  former, 
are  phases  of  the  same  form  of  perversion  in  which  atavism  re- 
sults in  confusion  of  sexuality  with  the  parent  instinct  of  hunger. 
This  applies  especially  to  the  negro,  in  whom  atavism  develops 
cannibalistic  impulses. 

That  the  perpetrator  of  the  Whitechapel  atrocities  was  men- 
tally unsound  is  shown  by  the  manner  in  which  the  bodies  of  the 
women  were  mutilated.  The  description  of  one  will  serve 
for  all : 

"  The  miserable  woman's  body  was  literally  scattered  all  over  her 
little  room.  Almost  every  conceivable  mutilation  had  been  practised  on 
the  body.  The  woman's  nose  was  cut  off  and  the  face  gashed.  She  had 
been  completely  disembowelled,  as  had  been  all  the  murderer's  former 
victims,  and  all  the  intestines  had  been  placed  upon  a  small  table,  which. 


SEXUAL    PSYCHOPATHY  385 

with  a  chair  and  the  bed,  constituted  all  the  furniture  in  the  room.  Both 
the  woman's  breasts  had  been  removed,  and  placed  also  upon  the  table. 
Large  portions  of  the  thighs  had  been  cut  away,  and  the  head  almost 
completely  severed  from  the  body.  One  leg  also  was  almost  completely 
cut  off.  The  mutilation  was  so  frightful  that  more  than  an  hour  was 
spent  by  the  doctors  in  endeavoring  to  reconstruct  the  woman's  body 
from  the  pieces  so  as  to  place  it  in  a  coffin,  and  have  it  photographed. 
It  was  found  that  portions  of  the  sexual  organs  had  been  carried  away 
by  the  murderer." 


A  series  of  murders  identical  with  those  of  Whitechapel  oc- 
curred in  Paris  in  1872.  They  were  perpetrated  by  a  religious 
fanatic,  one  Nicholas  Wassilyi,  yclept  by  the  people  of  Paris 
"La  Saveur  des  Ames  Perdues/'  the  saviour  of  lost  souls. 

In  the  year  mentioned  there  was  a  movement  in  the  orthodox 
church  of  Russia  against  some  sectarians.  Some  of  the  people, 
menaced  because  of  their  religion,  fled  from  the  country.  Most 
of  them  were  peasants,  but  Nicholas  Wassilyi  left  a  good  home. 
His  parents  were  quite  wealthy,  and  he  had  been  educated  at  the 
college  of  Odessa.  But  Nicholas  was  a  fanatical  sectarian,  and 
soon  became  a  leader  among  them.  The  chief  belief  of  his  sect 
was  in  the  renunciation  of  earthly  joys  to  secure  immortal  life  in 
Paradise.  Members  of  the  sect,  whether  male  or  female,  were 
strictly  forbidden  commerce  with  the  opposite  sex.  Wassilyi 
fled  to  Paris.  He  was  an  excellent  type  of  Russian.  He  had  a 
tall,  elastic  figure ;  a  regular,  manly  physiognomy ;  burning,  lan- 
guishing eyes,  and  a  pale  complexion.  He  avoided  his  country- 
men, taking  a  small  lodging  in  the  Quartier  Moufifetard,  where 
the  poor  and  miserable  live.  He  became  a  riddle  to  his  neigh- 
bors. He  used  to  stay  all  day  long  in  his  rooms  studying  books. 
At  night  he  wandered  through  the  streets  until  morning.  He 
was  often  seen  talking  with  abandoned  women,  and  it  soon  be- 
came known  that  he  followed  a  secret  mission  in  doing  so.  First 
he  tried  mild  persuasion  on  the  poor  creatures,  telling  them  to 
return  to  the  path  of  virtue.  When  words  failed,  he  put 
premiums  on  virtue,  and  gave  large  sums  to  the  cocottes  on  con- 
dition that  they  commenced  a  new  life.  Some  of  the  women 
were  really  touched  by  his  earnestness,  and  promised  to  follow 

25 


386  THE   DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

his  advice.  He  could  often  be  seen  on  the  street  corners  preach- 
ing to  gaudy  nymphs,  who  bitterly  shed  repentant  tears. 

His  mission,  however,  was  not  crowned  with  much  success. 
He  often  met  girls  who  had  broken  a  holy  oath  that  they  would 
sin  no  more.  Then  there  was  a  change.  He  would  approach  a 
woman,  speak  to  her  kindly,  and  follow  her  home.  When  alone 
with  her,  he  would  take  out  a  butcher-knife,  kneel  on  her  pros- 
trate body,  and  force  her  to  swear  not  to  solicit  again.  He 
seemed  to  believe  in  these  forced  oaths,  and  went  away  happy. 

One  evening,  in  the  Rue  de  Richelieu,  he  met  a  young  woman. 
She  had  an  elegant  figure  and  beautiful  blue  eyes.  This  girl 
seemed  to  make  a  great  impression  on  him.  He  spoke  to  her, — 
she  was  a  lost  one,  too, — but  not  brutally.  She  told  him  the 
whole  story  of  her  life, — the  story  of  a  poor,  parentless  girl,  who 
had  been  torn  from  happiness  and  cast  into  misery  and  shame. 

Wassilyi  for  the  first  time  fell  in  love.  He  procured  a  place 
for  the  woman  in  a  business  house,  and  paid  liberally  for  her 
support,  although  he  made  her  believe  she  was  supporting  her- 
self. For  several  weeks  the  girl  kept  straight.  But  one  day, 
when  Wassilyi  visited  her  home, — a  thing  he  seldom  did,  and 
then  only  when  an  old  guardian  of  hers  was  present, — he  found 
that  she  was  gone.  She  had  left  a  letter  to  him,  in  which  she 
said  that,  though  thankful  to  him  for  all  his  kindness,  her  life 
was  now  too  ennuyant  for  her,  and  that  she  preferred  to  be  left 
alone.  Wassilyi  was  in  a  fearful  mood  after  this.  He  wandered 
so  restlessly  through  the  streets  as  to  attract  the  attention  of  the 
constables.  Eight  weeks  afterwards  he  disappeared.  At  the 
same  time,  Madeline,  the  woman  he  had  supported,  was  found 
murdered  in  the  quarter  where  she  had  formerly  led  a  life  of 
shame.  Two  days  afterwards,  in  a  quiet  street  of  the  Faubourg 
St.  Germain,  the  corpse  of  another  murdered  woman  was  found. 
Three  days  afterwards  a  Phryne  of  the  Quartier  MouflFetard  was 
butchered  at  night  time.  All  the  murders  were  perpetrated  in 
the  same  horrible  way  as  those  in  Whitechapel.  Jewels  and 
everything  of  value  on  the  corpses  remained  untouched. 

Five  more  victims  were  found  butchered  in  the  Arrondisse- 
ment  du  Pantheon,  between  the  Boulevards  St.  Michel  and  De 


SEXUAL    PSYCHOPATHY  387 

L'Hopital.  Finally,  in  the  Rue  de  Lyon,  an  attack  was  made 
on  a  girl  who  had  a  chance  to  cry  for  help  before  she  was 
strangled.  The  would-be  murderer  was  captured.  He  was 
Nicholas  Wassilyi.  At  his  trial  his  lawyer  claimed  that  his 
client  was  insane.  The  jury  decided  that  such  was  the  case, 
and  Wassilyi  was  sent  back  to  Russia,  after  a  short  stay  in  a 
private  asylum  at  Bayonne. 

In  the  case  of  Wassilyi,  the  transition  from  religious  psychic 
erethism  to  perverted  sexuality  was  brought  about  by  his  love- 
affair  and  the  psychic  shock  of  the  discovery  of  the  woman's 
duplicity.  That  Wassilyi  was  sexually  normal  primarily  is 
highly  improbable.  Religious  enthusiasm  was  a  psycho-sexual 
vent  for  him,  and  was,  in  his  case,  essentially  a  manifestation 
of  sexual  perversion. 

Illustrations  of  the  varying  types  of  sexual  perversion  have 
of  late  years  found  their  way  into  literature.  A  very  interesting 
series  of  cases  is  related  by  Krafft-Ebing.® 

Tardieu  chronicles  the  following  interesting  points  with 
regard  to  one  form  of  sexual  perversion,  which  is  given  atten- 
tion in  the  criminal  code : 

"  I  do  not  pretend  to  explain  that  which  is  incomprehensible,  and 
thus  to  penetrate  into  the  causes  of  pederasty.  We  can,  nevertheless,  ask 
if  there  is  not  something  else  in  this  vice  than  a  moral  perversion,  than 
one  of  the  forms  of  psychopathia  sexualis,  of  which  Kaan  has  traced 
the  history.  Unbridled  debauchery  and  exhausted  sensuality  alone  can 
account  for  the  pederastic  habits  of  some  men. 

"  We  can  form  some  idea  on  the  subject  from  a  perusal  of  the 
writings  of  pederasts  containing  the  expression  of  their  depraved  pas- 
sions. Casper  had  in  his  possession  a  journal  in  which  a  man,  member 
of  an  old  and  aristocratic  family,  had  recorded,  day  by  day,  and  for 
several  years,  his  sexual  adventures,  passions,  and  feelings.  In  this 
diary  he  avowed  his  shameful  habits,  which  had  extended  through  more 
than  thirty  years,  and  which  had  succeeded  an  ardent  love  for  the  other 
sex.  He  had  been  initiated  into  the  horrible  practice  by  a  procuress. 
The  description  which  he  gives  of  his  feelings  is  startling  in  its  intensity. 

"  I  have  had  frequent  occasion  to  read  the  correspondence  of  known 
pederasts,  and  have  found  them  applying  to  each  other  idealistic  names, 
legitimately  belonging  to  the  diction  of  the  truest  and  most  ardent  love. 

'Journal  of  Neurology  snd  Psychiatry,  and  Psychopathia  Sexualis. 


388  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

"  It  is  difficult  to  deny  the  existence  in  some  cases  of  real  patho- 
logic alteration  of  the  moral  faculties.  When  we  witness  the  profound 
degradation  and  revolting  salacity  of  men  gifted  both  with  education 
and  fortune,  we  must  believe  that  their  sensations  and  reason  are 
altered.  I  can  entertain  no  doubt  on  the  subject,  in  view  of  certain  facts 
such  as  have  been  related  to  me  by  a  magistrate,  who  has  displayed  both 
ability  and  energy  in  the  pursuit  of  pederasts.  What  other  idea  can  we 
entertain  of  such  horrors  than  that  those  guilty  of  them  are  actuated 
by  the  most  pitiable  and  shameful  insanity?" 


That  unbridled  licentiousness  may  lead  to  perversion  is  well 
shown  by  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette  exposures  in  London.  The 
Cavendish  Square  scandal  plainly  showed  that  perverted  sex- 
uality was  not  unknown  among  some  degenerate  scions  of 
European  aristocracy.  This  is  not  surprising  to  the  student  of 
neurology.  Refinements  of  civilization  and  luxurious  living 
bring  refinements  of  vice  in  their  train. 

Some  of  the  older  members  of  the  medical  profession  in  one 
of  our  large  American  cities  will  recall  the  case  of  a  celebrated 
surgeon  who  was  compelled  by  his  colleagues  to  resign  his  col- 
lege position  and  leave  the  city  upon  positive  evidence  of  his 
practice  of  pederasty.  In  this  case  perversion  developed  only 
under  the  influence  of  alcohol. 

Some  of  the  manifestations  of  sexual  perversion  are  very 
extraordinary,  and  it  is  difficult  to  associate  them  with  titilla- 
tions  of  psycho-sexual  sensibility.  The  most  familiar  case  is 
that  of  Sprague,  committed  in  Brooklyn,  some  years  ago,  for 
highway  robbery.  Sprague  was  arrested  immediately  after 
having  assaulted  a  young  lady  by  violently  throwing  her  down, 
removing  one  of  her  shoes  and  running  away  with  it.  He  made 
no  attempt  to  steal  anything  else,  although  she  had  on  valuable 
jewelry.  When  the  trial  came  on,  insanity  was  alleged  as  a 
defence.  Numerous  witnesses,  the  principal  of  whom  was  the 
father  of  the  defendant,  a  respectable  clergyman,  testified  to  the 
erratic  conduct  of  the  prisoner.  The  family  history  bore  most 
pertinently  upon  the  case,  Sprague's  grandfather,  grandmother, 
great-grand-uncle,  three  great-aunts,  and  a  cousin  having  been 
insane.    He  had  himself  in  his  youth  received  numerous  blows 


SEXUAL    PSYCHOPATHY  389 

and  falls  upon  the  head,  and  within  a  year  from  the  last  head 
injury  had  developed  severe  headaches,  associated  with  "  a 
bulging  of  the  eyes."  About  this  time  the  prisoner  developed  a 
penchant  for  stealing  and  hiding  the  shoes  of  the  females  about 
the  house,  and  it  was  found  necessary  by  his  female  relatives  and 
the  domestics  to  carefully  lock  up  or  conceal  their  shoes.  It 
was  discovered  that  the  act  of  stealing  or  handling  the  shoes 
produced  in  him  sexual  gratification. 

Wharton,"  several  years  ago,  chronicled  a  most  peculiar 
case  of  sexual  perversion  occurring  in  Leipzig.  In  this  instance 
the  morbid  sexual  desire  impelled  the  individual  to  assault  young 
girls  upon  the  streets  by  grasping  them  and  plunging  a  small 
lancet  into  their  arms  above  the  elbow.  It  was  shown  after  his 
arrest  that  these  peculiar  acts  were  accompanied  by  sexual  grati- 
fication. This  case  is  additional  evidence  in  support  of  the 
hypothesis  that  the  notorious  Whitechapel  assassin  was  a  sexual 
pervert,  a  theory  which  Kiernan  in  particular  has  supported,  and 
which  has  been  accepted  by  the  majority  of  alienists  who  have 
given  the  murders  even  slight  consideration. 

Many  cases  manifest  themselves  only  under  the  influence  of 
disease  or  drunkenness.  Ovarian  irritation  and  certain  obscure 
cases  of  hysteria  in  women,  which  we  are  frequently  unable  to 
trace  to  a  definite  physical  cause,  are  sometimes  associated  with 
sexual  perversion.  Pregnancy,  in  certain  neurotic  patients,  is 
productive  of  similar  aberrations. 

Whether  the  influence  of  liquor  obtunds  the  moral  faculties 
or  develops  an  inherent  defect  of  sexual  physiology  in  any  given 
case  is,  of  course,  difficult  to  determine.  I  have  the  data  of  the 
case  of  a  man  of  exceptional  intellectual  attainments  who  con- 
ducts himself  with  perfect  propriety  when  sober,  but  who,  under 
the  influence  of  alcohol,  is  too  low  for  consort  with  the  human 
species. 

The  association  of  sexual  perversion  with  malformation  of 
the  sexual  organs,  with  or  without  associated  close  approxima- 
tion to  the  general  physique  of  the  opposite  sex,  is,  as  already 


'  Medical  Jurisprudence,  Stille  and  Wharton. 


390  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

remarked,  not  surprising.  I  have  met  with  a  most  peculiar  illus- 
tration of  this  form  of  sexual  perversion  in  a  young  mulatto. 
This  man  had  marked  hypospadias,  and  had  a  predilection  for 
women,  as  evidenced  by  his  contracting  gonorrhea  in  the  usual 
way.  That  he  also  had  a  predilection  for  the  passive  role  in  the 
sexual  act  was  demonstrated  by  the  fact  that  a  number  of  young 
lads,  from  ten  to  seventeen  years  of  age,  who  lived  in  the  neigh- 
borhood in  which  the  spurious  hermaphrodite  was  employed  in 
the  capacity  of  cook,  contracted  from  him  typic  gonorrhea. 

Figs.  15  to  22  constitute  a  group  of  sexual  perverts,  who, 
with  the  exception  of  the  youth  shown  in  Figs.  21  and  22,  pre- 
sent marked  degeneracy.  It  could  hardly  be  claimed  that  they 
present  any  features  especially  indicative  of  the  nature  of  the 
crime  for  which  they  are  imprisoned.  It  may  be  fairly  claimed, 
however,  that  the  group  is  worse  looking  than  the  average  of 
criminals. 

The  subjects  shown  in  Figs.  15,  16,  and  17,  18  were  con- 
victed of  pederasty ;  Figs.  19  and  20,  of  indecent  exposure ; 
Figs.  21,  22  are  portraits  of  a  weak  but  refined-looking  boy, 
who  probably  was  not  a  true  pervert,  but  had  been  initiated  into 
vice  by  older  and  more  hardened  offenders.  He  illustrates  very 
plainly  the  necessity  of  careful  supervision  of  young  lads,  espe- 
cially as  regards  association  with  older  males. 

SATYRIASIS   AND    NYMPHOMANIA 

Satyriasis  is  a  disease  that  occurs  in  the  male,  with  or  with- 
out insanity,  the  principal  manifestation  of  which  is  an  abnor- 
mally excessive  and  unreasonable  sexual  desire.  It  is  not  fre- 
quently brought  to  the  attention  of  the  physician,  save  in  the 
insane,  probably  because  opportunities  for  gratification  of  the 
male  are  numerous.  The  disease  consists  of  constant  desire 
attended  by  priapism,  which  in  some  cases  no  amount  of  sexual 
indulgence  will  gratify.  It  has  been  termed  "  erotic  delirium." 
It  may  or  may  not  be  due  to  coarse  disease  of  the  brain.  In  the 
worst  cases  the  unfortunate  individual  may  be  the  subject  of 
violent  mania  and  delirium.  Acton  relates  the  case  of  an  old 
man,  suflFering  from  satyriasis,  whose  desire  was  so  extreme  that 


►ij    z:^ 


^» 


SEXUAL    PSYCHOPATHY  391 

he  was  lost  to  all  sense  of  propriety.  After  his  death  a  small 
tumor  was  found  in  the  pons  Varolii. 

Shocks  and  injuries  involving  the  cerebellum  are  peculiarly 
apt  to  be  followed  by  priapism.  This  has  been  noticed  in  sub- 
jects executed  by  hanging.  Injuries  of  the  spinal  cord,  although 
in  the  majority  of  cases  inhibiting  the  sexual  functions  by  pro- 
ducing complete  paralysis  of  the  genito-spinal  centre,  produce 
in  some  instances,  from  irritation  of  the  same  nervous  structure, 
persistent  priapism. 

The  causes  of  satyriasis  as  enumerated  by  different  authori- 
ties are :  Masturbation ;  diseases  of  the  brain,  particularly  those 
affecting  the  cerebellum ;  injuries  and  diseases  of  the  spinal  cord  ; 
sexual  excesses ;  and  the  administration  of  poisonous  doses  of 
cantharides.  Prolonged  continence  is  another  cause  to  which 
satyriasis  has  been  ascribed.  This,  in  my  opinion,  is  absurd. 
The  relation  of  satyriasis  of  greater  or  less  degree  to  furor 
sexualis,  which  is  so  often  responsible  for  sexual  crimes,  is 
obvious. 

Nymphomania  {erotomania,  furor  uterinus)  is  a  disease 
analogous  to  satyriasis,  occurring  in  the  female.  It  is  character- 
ized by  excessive  and  inordinate  sexual  desire,  and  often  by 
the  most  pronounced  lewdness  and  vulgarity.  In  severe  forms  it 
is  likely  to  be  associated  with  and  dependent  upon  true  insanity, 
with  or  without  gross  brain  disease.  In  some  instances  the  dis- 
ease is  a  reflex  manifestation  of  irritative  affections  of  the  sexual 
apparatus.  Thus  ovarian  and  uterine  disease  are  sometimes 
associated  with  it.  Any  irritation  about  the  external  genital 
organs  of  females  of  hysterical  temperament  may  produce  the 
affection.  All  that  is  necessary  is  a  nervous  and  excitable  state 
of  the  nervous  system,  a  passionate  temperament,  and  local  irri- 
tation of  the  sensitive  sexual  apparatus.  Some  of  the  recorded 
cases  of  nymphomania  are  pitiful.  It  has  been  known  to  be 
associated  with  the  cerebral  disturbance  incidental  to  pulmonary 
consumption.  Cases  have  been  recorded  of  women  who  in  the 
last  stages  of  this  disease  exhibited  the  most  inordinate  sexual 
desire. 

The  association  of  hysteria  with  this  unfortunate  condition 


392  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

of  the  mind  and  sexual  organs  is  one  with  which  nearly  every 
gynecologist  of  experience  is  perfectly  familiar.  Nymphomania 
is  also  known  to  occur  as  a  result  of  masturbation  and  sexual 
excess.  In  women  of  highly  erethistic  temperament  it  has  been 
developed  as  a  consequence  of  sudden  cessation  of  normal  regular 
sexual  indulgence. 

A  knowledge  of  sexual  matters  is  by  no  means  necessary 
to  the  development  of  nymphomania,  for  it  has  been  known  to 
occur  in  individuals  who  had  neither  masturbated  nor  indulged 
in  sexual  intercourse.  Some  of  the  most  painful  cases  have 
occurred  during  pregnancy.  The  most  astonishing  feature  of 
some  cases  is  lewd  actions  and  expressions  by  women  previously 
pure-minded  and  refined.  Such  women  conduct  themselves  so 
as  to  lead  one  to  wonder  where  they  could  possibly  have  acquired 
their  vulgar  knowledge. 

The  gynecologist  is  compelled  to  be  on  his  guard  against  a 
not  infrequent  form  of  nymphomania,  one  which  is  not  suspected 
by  the  patient's  friends,  in  which  the  woman  develops  a  fondness 
for  gynecologic  manipulations.  The  subterfuges  and  devices 
of  such  patients  to  induce  handling  of  the  sexual  organs  by  the 
physician  are  remarkable.  Perhaps  one  of  the  most  frequent 
forms  of  this  malingering  is  the  pretence  of  retention  of  urine. 
Every  disease  of  which  they  have  ever  heard  may  be  complained 
of  by  such  patients  in  their  insane  endeavors  to  obtain  local 
treatment. 

Inordinate  sexual  desire  on  the  part  of  the  female,  falling 
short,  perhaps,  of  true  nymphomania,  is  not  infrequent.  This, 
with  nymphomania,  is,  as  I  have  already  noted,  one  of  the 
occasional  causes  of  prostitution. 


CHAPTER   IX 

THE   RACE    PROBLEM    IN    ITS   RELATION    TO   SEXUAL   VICE 
AND   CRIME 

The  race  problem  in  its  specific  bearing  upon  sexual  crime  in 
America  is  most  important,  especially  in  the  Southern  States. 

Whatever  the  merits  of  the  "  war  of  races"  may  be,  it  is  cer- 
tain that  the  South  is  accursed  by  frequent  outrages  of  its  women 
by  negroes,  followed  by  swift  and  terrible  retribution.  That 
sexual  immorality  and  the  perpetration  of  sexual  crimes  is  not 
altogether  one-sided  nor  monopolized  by  the  blacks  is  also  true, 
as  will  be  seen  later ;  but  this  does  not  lessen  the  specific  im- 
portance of  the  sexual  phase  of  negro  criminality. 

Although  the  majority  of  outrages  perpetrated  by  negroes 
are  committed  in  the  South,  because  of  certain  conditions  as 
regards  the  number  of  blacks  and  their  peculiar  environment 
in  that  section,  similar  crimes  are  claimed  to  be  more  frequently 
committed  in  the  North  by  blacks  than  by  whites,  the  numerical 
relations  of  the  two  races  being  considered. 

In  the  study  of  the  causes  of  the  relatively  frequent  perpe- 
tration of  rape  by  the  American  negro,  numerous  factors  in  the 
etiology  of  crime  in  general  must  be  considered.  Most  of  these 
have  been  dwelt  upon  in  a  previous  chapter ;  only  the  special 
factors  leading  to  sexual  crimes  concern  us  here. 

Hereditary  influences  descending  from  the  negro's  barbaric 
ancestors  are  of  prime  importance.  Considering  the  peculiar 
sexual  customs  of  his  ancestry,  it  is  not  surprising  that  evil  traits 
crop  out  frequently.  Marriage  among  certain  negro  tribes  is  a 
close  simulation  of  what  civilized  communities  classify  as  rape. 
When  the  black  savage  knocks  down  his  prospective  bride  with 
a  club  and  drags  her  oflf  to  his  kraal,  he  illustrates  the  proto- 
type of  the  criminal  sexual  acts  of  the  negro  in  the  United  States. 

393 


394  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

From  the  native  African  stand-point,  however,  there  is  nothing 
immoral  or  criminal  in  the  negro  marriage  by  capture, — indeed, 
he  draws  a  hard  and  fast  line  between  it  and  what  he  calls  rape, 
— nor  is  it  restricted  to  him  alone,  some  primitive  Caucasian 
communities  practising  essentially  the  same  custom.  The  same 
method  applied  to  the  conquest  of  the  female  in  highly  civilized 
communities  is  an  infraction  of  law  and  morals.  Among  de- 
generate or  reversionary  types  of  whites  sexual  crimes  are  often 
a  socially  atavistic  manifestation  of  savagery  similar  to  that 
which  occurs  in  the  black  rapist. 

Many  centuries  of  civilization  and  appreciation  of  altruistic 
social  obligations  have  done  much  for  the  sexual  subjugation  of 
the  white  race,  which  is  essentially  a  mixed  type  after  all.  We 
should  consider,  on  the  other  hand,  how  short  a  time  such  in- 
fluences have  been  brought  to  bear  upon  the  American  negro. 
We  should  also  consider  the  fact  that,  from  the  stand-point  of 
civilization  and  moral  independence,  his  evolution  really  began 
with  his  liberation.  Then,  and  then  only,  did  he  become  a 
distinct  social  factor  in  this  country. 

A  disproportionate  development  of  animal  propensities  inci- 
dental to  a  relatively  low  degree  of  differentiation  of  type  is  a 
marked  characteristic  of  the  negro.  This  is  necessarily  involved 
in  the  factor  of  heredity.  It  is  a  racial  characteristic  which,  for 
physical  reasons,  environment  will  never  entirely  eliminate, 
although  time  will  do  much. 

A  relative  defective  development  of  what  may  be  termed  the 
centres  of  psychologic  inhibition  is  characteristic  of  all  races, 
white  or  black,  of  a  low  grade  of  intellectual  development.  This, 
with  some  races,  might  be  corrected,  but  it  certainly  has  not  yet 
been  corrected,  nor  is  it  probable  that  it  can  ever  be  completely 
in  the  negro  as  a  distinct  racial  type.  This  is  one  of  his  racial 
handicaps. 

Physical  and  moral  degeneracy, — the  latter  involving  chiefly 
the  higher  and  more  recently  acquired  attributes, — with  a  dis- 
tinct tendency  to  reversion  of  type,  is  evident  in  the  Southern 
negro.  This  physical  and  moral  degeneracy  and  atavism  is 
especially  manifest  in  the  direction  of  sexual  proclivities.    This 


RELATION   TO    SEXUAL   VICE    AND    CRIME      395 

is  natural,  accords  with  the  principles  of  evolution,  and  applies 
to  all  races,  but  with  especial  force,  perhaps,  to  the  negro. 

The  cannibalistic  sexual  rites  of  Hayti  and  Liberia  and  the 
enormous  increase  of  Voodoo  Phallic  worship  among  the 
Southern  negroes  since  the  war  are  equally  significant  of  atavism. 
When  sexuality  finds  vent  in  Phallic  worship,  it  is  comparatively 
harmless  as  regards  the  individual.  When  it  cannot  be  vented 
in  this  manner,  it  is  likely  to  result  in  sexual  crime. 

The  removal  by  his  liberation  of  certain  inhibitions  placed 
upon  the  negro  by  slavery  itself,  already  alluded  to  in  the 
chapter  on  etiology  of  crime  in  general,  has  been  especially 
effective  as  a  causal  factor  of  sexual  crimes  among  the  bla:ks 
of  the  South.  The  demoralizing  influence  of  certain  whites  in 
the  South,  who  did  not  recognize  even  sexual  rights  in  their 
human  chattels,  was  to  a  certain  degree  offset  by  fear  on  the 
part  of  the  slave,  yet  it  is  remarkable  that  outrages  upon  white 
women  were  so  rare.  When  the  negro  exhibited  immorality  in 
relation  to  the  females  of  his  own  race,  he  usually  had  the  ex- 
cuse of  the  bad  example  set  him  by  the  whites, — often  by  his 
masters, — who  did  not  concede  to  the  negress  the  attribute  of 
virtue.  Indeed,  the  negro  as  a  breeder,  rather  than  as  a  moral 
factor,  was  often  the  slave-owner's  chief  concern. 

The  old  idea  that  the  negress  had  no  sexual  rights  has  lost 
ground  since  slavery  days,  but  the  view  that  she  necessarily  has 
no  virtue — that  virtue  is  an  attribute  impossible  to  the  race — 
still  exists.  I  recall  a  statement  made  by  a  young  Southerner 
to  the  effect  that  a  young  man  in  his  section  who  fornicated 
never  injured  his  social  standing,  even  though  his  habits  were 
known,  providing  he  confined  himself  to  "  prostitutes  and 
niggers."  His  remarks  were  allowed  to  pass  without  protest 
by  the  party  of  representative  Southerners  before  which  they 
were  made.  While  not  a  subject  for  discussion  in  circles  polite, 
cohabitation  with  negresses  is  in  some  quarters  tacitly  under- 
stood to  be  inseparable  from  the  wild  oat  sowing  of  Southern 
youth. 

Much  of  the  racial  trouble  in  the  South  to-day  is  due  to  the 
intrinsically  immoral  attitude  of  many  whites  towards  the  negro. 


396  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

That  a  powerful  undercurrent  of  resentment  should  exist  in  the 
minds  of  the  blacks  is  but  natural.  That  the  whites  have  not 
always  set  them  a  good  example  is  self-evident.  The  large 
number  of  illegitimate  mulattoes  in  America  bears  witness  to 
this.  How  illegitimate  relations  with  the  blacks  can  be  condoned 
or  even  tolerated,  while  miscegenation  is  legislated  against,  is 
perplexing  to  the  logical  mind. 

We  are  perforce  compelled  to  admit  that  synchronously  with 
the  passing  of  the  old-time  slave — who  still  revered  "  ole  marse 
and  mistis" — and  the  incoming  of  his  degenerate  descendants, 
all  kinds  of  criminality  in  the  Southern  negro  increased.  Con- 
sidering his  disproportionate  sexual  development,  is  it  remark- 
able that,  with  the  removal  of  his  inhibitions,  sexual  crimes — 
which  were  hitherto  almost  unknown — should  result?  The 
idea  of  equality  with  the  whites — who  were  no  longer  to  be  re- 
vered as  demigods — seething  in  the  ignorant  minds  of  the 
younger  generation  of  blacks  played  a  powerful  role  in  de- 
termining the  sexual  direction  of  antisocial  acts. 

An  incapacity  of  appreciation  of  the  dire  results  to  himself 
of  sexual  crimes  is  evident  in  the  lower-class  black.  This  in- 
capacity is  characteristic  of  a  low  type  of  organization,  and  such 
little  sense  of  personal  responsibility  as  a  large  proportion  of  the 
race  naturally  possesses  is  readily  inhibited  by  excitement  of  the 
lower  brain  centres  by  anger,  alcohol,  or  the  furor  sexualis. 
The  higher  faculties  of  the  brain — those  of  ideation  and  reason 
— are  better  developed  in  higher  types  of  humanity,  and  there  is 
usually  a  corresponding  lack  of  development  of  the  lower,  or 
more  strictly  animal  centres.  When,  therefore,  in  the  superior 
race  a  struggle  for  the  mastery  arises  between  the  intellect- 
ual faculties  and  animal  impulses,  the  balance  is  likely  to  be 
with  the  former,  particularly  when  a  keen  sense  of  personal 
responsibility  comes  into  play ;  the  reverse  obtains  in  the 
black. 

When  all  inhibitions  have  been  removed  by  sexual  excite- 
ment, there  is  little  difference,  so  far  as  the  sense  of  personal 
responsibility  is  concerned,  between  the  sexual  furor  of  the  de- 
generate human  being,  and  that  which  prevails  among  the  lower 


RELATION   TO    SEXUAL   VICE   AND    CRIME      397 

animals,  in  certain  instances  and  at  certain  periods.  This  is  not 
confined  to  the  blacks,  but  is  observed,  although  much  less  fre- 
quently, in  some  sexual  criminals  among  the  whites.  This  re- 
version of  type  is  both  physical  and  psychic,  and  must  be  taken 
into  serious  consideration,  as  it  bears  directly  upon  the  question 
whether  or  not  it  is  practicable  to  remedy  the  resulting  evils  by 
the  present  methods  of  punishment  and  revenge  ? 

Kiernan  has  asserted  that  furor  sexnalis  in  the  negro  re- 
sembles similar  sexual  attacks  in  the  bull  and  elephant,  and  the 
running  amok  of  the  Malay.  He  further  notes  the  sadism  mani- 
fested by  the  negro  in  the  torture  or  murder  of  his  ravished 
victim.  This  is  distinctly  atavistic  and  occurs  occasionally  in 
whites. 

The  seeds  of  religion  sown  upon  the  soil  of  ignorance  and 
superstition  have  had  much  to  do  with  the  development  of  crim- 
inality in  the  negro.  Whether  no  religion  at  all  would  not  be 
better  for  a  large  proportion  of  the  lower  class  blacks  is  at  least 
debatable  ground.  When  a  low  type  of  race  is  subjected  to 
emotional  strain,  inhibitions  are  removed  and  primitive  instincts 
or  bloodthirstiness  come  to  the  surface.  The  Anabaptists  of  the 
Lutheran  Reformation  threw  all  restraint  to  the  winds  and  in- 
dulged in  sexual  murders.  These  Anabaptists  were  chiefly  serfs 
who  had  been  inflamed  by  fallacious  notions  of  the  clergy  ema- 
nating from  the  time-honored  text :  "  And  they,  the  disciples, 
had  all  things  in  common,  in  love  preferring  one  another."  ^ 
Influences  of  this  character  afTect  the  negro  race  in  consequence 
of  the  quality  of  preaching  that  degrades. 

There  is  more  than  an  indirect  relation  between  the  emo- 
tional excitement  associated  with  religious  fervor  in  the  blacks, 
and  outrages  upon  white  women.  Angels  are  depicted  as  white, 
and  their  pictured  beauty  has  a  very  disastrous  effect  upon  the 
brain  of  the  negro  when  his  emotional  centres  are  in  the  con- 
dition of  auto-erethism  characteristic  of  religious  excitement. 
The  result,  in  brief,  is  an  inflamed  desire  for  the  possession  of 
females  of  the  superior  race,  and  an  increase  of  what  may  be 

*J.  G.  Kiernan,  Journal  of  Nervous  and  Mental  Diseases,  1885. 


398  THE   DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

termed  sexual  curiosity.  A  celebrated  Southern  negro  divine 
has  expressed  himself  similarly.  This  clergyman  said  that,  in 
his  opinion,  fewer  white  angels  and  more  black  ones  would  have 
a  repressive  effect  on  sexual  crimes  among  the  blacks. 

The  view  that  repentance  upon  the  scaffold  is  a  guarantee 
of  divine  favor  is  quite  general,  and  is  especially  potent  in  its 
influence  upon  the  blacks.  The  condemned  negro  who  does  not 
believe  that  he  is  heavenward  bound  as  he  stands  upon  the 
scaffold,  or  confronts  the  infuriated  citizens  of  the  community 
in  which  he  has  committed  an  outrage,  is  a  rarity.  It  is  not  a 
long  step  backward  from  the  pious  and  superstitious  negro  who, 
in  the  shadow  of  the  gallows-tree,  believes  he  is  on  the  short  cut 
to  heaven,  to  the  Zulu,  who  in  battle  courts  death  because  the 
religion  of  his  fathers  has  taught  him  to  believe  that  an  eternity 
of  happiness  lies  just  beyond  the  enemy's  spear  or  bullet.  The 
indifference  to  death  which  heredity  and  religion — both  heathen 
and  Christian — have  imparted  to  the  negro,  associated  with  the 
moral  anesthesia  of  the  more  degraded  of  the  race  in  America, 
is  one  of  the  chief  factors  in  defeating  the  aim  of  capital  punish- 
ment— viz.,  repression  of  crime.  Capital  punishment  is  not  a 
brilliant  success  in  the  repression  of  crime,  even  among  the 
whites,  whose  nervous  organization  and  sensibilities  are  more 
refined  than  the  blacks',  and  who,  therefore,  should  be  ex- 
pected to  have  a  keener  appreciation  of  present  existence  and 
a  greater  dread  of  "that  something  after  death."  Du  Bois 
himself  has  said,  "  Of  death  the  negro  shows  little  fear,  but 
talks  of  it  familiarly  and  fondly  as  simply  a  crossing  of  the 
waters,  perhaps — who  knows? — back  to  his  ancient  forests 
again."  ^ 

The  greater  frequency  of  rape  in  the  South  is  explicable  in 
part  by  the  climate,  which  is  much  more  favorable  to  the  per- 
petuation of  the  primitive  impulses  of  the  black  race  than  is  that 
of  the  North.  Reversion  of  type — both  physical  and  psychic — 
is  more  likely  to  occur  under  the  influences  of  the  climate  which 
most  nearly  approximates  that  in  which  the  race  was  originally 


» The  Souls  of  Black  Folk. 


RELATION   TO    SEXUAL    VICE    AND    CRIME      399 

bred.  The  influence  of  climate  upon  the  sexual  function  is 
powerful  in  even  the  Caucasian.  Seasons  also  have  their  in- 
fluence.^ Aside  from  the  influence  of  the  climate  the  Northern 
and  Southern  negroes  are,  on  the  average,  widely  different,  physi- 
cally, intellectually,  and  as  social  factors. 

•  Influence  of  Seasons  upon  Conduct,  Lefiingwell. 


CHAPTER   X 

THE   TREATMENT   OF    SEXUAL   VICE   AND    CRIME 

If  it  were  proved  that  prostitution  is  always  due  to  degen- 
eracy, would  we  be  any  better  off  as  to  its  prevention  and  cure,  if 
we  limited  ourselves  solely  to  the  conditions  underlying  degen- 
eracy ?  Like  crime,  prostitution  and  its  evils  demand  attention  in 
our  own  generation,  and  while  we  should  discover  and  correct  its 
physical  causes,  where  possible,  we  must  remember  that  the 
prevention  of  degeneracy  demands  many  years  for  perceptible 
results.  The  phenomena  of  all  social  diseases  demand  imme- 
diate palliation,  even  where  the  causes  are  either  remediable  or 
very  remotely  so.  To  abjure  methods  of  amelioration  of  prosti- 
tution, even  though  it  were  in  all  cases  dependent  upon  physical 
degeneracy,  which  cannot  be  immediately  affected  by  our  reme- 
dies, would  be  quite  as  absurd  as  to  refuse  aid  in  certain  diseases 
of  the  individual  body  because  the  specific  germ  is  beyond  our 
reach.  The  chief  danger  of  ultra-materialism  in  vice  and  crime, 
as  in  bodily  disease,  is  therapeutic  nihilism.  No  matter  how 
clearly  science  may  demonstrate  the  cause  of  criminality  and 
vice  to  be  physical,  and  beyond  immediate  control,  measures  for 
present  amelioration  must  not  be  neglected. 

The  same  measures  that  tend  to  prevent  crime  by  correcting 
or  preventing  degeneracy  necessarily  apply  to  the  prevention  of 
prostitution,  but  moral,  educational,  physical,  industrial,  and 
social  measures  of  prevention  and  cure  are  much  more  logical 
and  effective  in  their  application  to  prostitution  than  to  crime, 
although  the  same  principles  govern  in  the  case  of  each.  The 
general  principles  in  the  correction  of  vice  and  crime  have  else- 
where been  considered.  The  special  measures  for  the  preven- 
tion, amelioration  and  cure  of  prostitution  alone  concern  us  here. 

Considered  as  an  entity, — a  social  disease, — prostitution  may 
be  said  to  be  absolutely  incurable  under  existing  conditions.  All 
400 


TREATMENT    OF    SEXUAL    VICE    AND    CRIAIE     401 

efforts  in  the  direction  of  cure  have  been  signal  failures.  There 
has  thus  far  been  but  little  accomplished  even  in  the  prevention 
and  amelioration  of  the  evil.  That  moral,  legal,  social,  and 
medical  methods  of  management  have  done  much  good  is 
admitted,  but  the  good  has  been  individual  and  sporadic.  Pros- 
titution as  an  institution  has  not  experienced  the  slightest  effect 
from  the  labors  of  moralist,  social  philosopher,  legislator,  physi- 
cian, or  the  church.  The  proportion  of  prostitutes  has  increased, 
just  as  have  other  products  of  social  and  physical  degeneracy. 
The  proportion  of  syphilitics  and  gonorrheics  has  apparently  not 
lessened,  so  far  as  the  world  at  large  is  concerned,  whatever  may 
have  been  accomplished  in  certain  localities. 

It  would  be  presumptuous  in  me  to  prescribe  an  arbitrary 
system  of  treatment  for  the  social  evil,  in  the  face  of  the  failure 
of  the  ablest  minds  of  the  world  to  suggest  a  practical  remedy. 
I  desire  simply  to  present  what  I  believe  to  be  the  most  logical 
measures  of  prevention  and  amelioration  of  prostitution  and  its 
results — remedies  which,  while  they  do  not  always  operate  along 
the  lines  of  least  resistance,  and  are  in  some  instances  necessarily 
slow  in  results,  even  if  adopted  in  toto,  must  inevitably  prove 
beneficial  to  society  after  a  reasonable  time. 

The  immediate  suppression  of  prostitution  under  present 
conditions  would  probably  result  in  social  disaster.  Taking  pros- 
titution as  it  really  is,  it  is  a  protector  of  the  home.  The  de- 
bauchery of  the  degenerate  is  in  a  sense  the  salvation  of  the 
virtuous.  The  debauchery  of  one  woman — already  past  hope  of 
redemption — may  protect  the  persons  of  a  large  number  of  her 
more  fortunate  sisters.  This  may  be  considered  a  very  unsen- 
timental way  of  expressing  the  situation,  but  I  am  discussing 
actual  conditions,  evil  though  they  are,  and  am  bound  to  present 
what  I  believe  to  be  the  facts.  If  there  is  a  soul  of  good  in 
things  evil,  let  us  know  it  by  all  means.  The  remedy  lies  not  in 
suppression,  but  in  mitigating  the  effects  of  prostitution  in  the 
first  instance,  and,  secondly,  in  correcting,  so  far  as  possible,  the 
causal  conditions  underlying  it. 

Prevention  of  prostitution  is  the  key-note  of  its  management. 
The  first  essential  is,  in  my  estimation,  the  education  of  youth 

26 


402  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

by  giving  it  sound  ideas  of  sexual  physiology,  correcting  vicious 
notions  derived  from  depraved  men  and  women,  imparting  a 
knowledge  of  the  horrors  of  venereal  disease,  and  cultivating  a 
healthful  selfishness. 

In  speaking  of  the  advisability  of  the  sexual  education  of 
youth,  I  desire  to  oppose  the  notion  that  the  male  and  female 
should  be  educated  in  precisely  the  same  way,  and  that  pruriency 
is  excusable  when  published  for  alleged  educational  purposes. 
A  distinguished  and  able  member  of  the  medical  profession  once 
wrote  a  treatise  upon  the  sexual  relation  along  the  lines  that  he 
considered  proper  for  popular  reading,  which  was  justly  re- 
fused publication  in  a  prominent  medical  journal.  The  pamphlet 
was  couched  in  such  terms  that  the  man  who  should  do  bodily 
harm  to  any  one  who  should  place  it  in  the  hands  of  a  respectable 
woman  would  scarcely  be  punished  in  any  court  in  the  land,  yet 
the  author  advocated  placing  it  in  the  hands  of  young  and 
innocent  girls.  The  intent  in  this  case  was  laudable,  but  the 
method  was  as  deplorable  as  those  of  certain  degenerate  quack 
"  professors"  of  sexual  training  who  have  recently  cropped  out 
in  various  large  cities. 

There  is  much  that  is  necessary  in  the  sexual  education  of 
boys  in  the  better  grades  of  society  which  would  be  superfluous 
and  indecent  in  the  training  of  girls  of  similar  social  status. 
There  is  not  so  much  of  innate,  hereditary,  and  acquired  de- 
pravity, nor  so  many  sources  of  vicious  training  and  example 
to  combat  in  girls  as  in  boys.  The  normal  social  atmosphere  of 
girls  is  relatively  pure  and  sexually  repressant,  the  reverse  being 
the  case  with  boys.  The  environment  of  the  more  degraded  class 
of  girls,  is,  of  course,  not  greatly  unlike  that  of  boys  of  the 
same  social  stratum,  yet  even  here  there  is  a  difference,  although 
educational  measures  will  have  little  influence  in  either  sex  unless 
such  children  are  removed  from  their  vicious  surroundings. 
Moral  and  intellectual  improvement  demands  brain  susceptibility, 
which  in  certain  environments  cannot  be  developed. 

Inasmuch  as  I  have  assigned  to  the  male  the  most  important 
role  in  the  etiology  of  prostitution,  he  should  be  considered  as 
of  first  importance  in  the  problem  of  prevention. 


V 


TREATMENT    OF    SEXUAL    VICE   AND    CRIME     403 

As  matters  stand  at  present,  the  growing  lad  comes  to  regard 
sexual  purity  in  the  male  as  something  to  be  ashamed  of,  and 
female  virtue  as  extremely  out  of  fashion.  The  city  youth, 
especially,  is  not  likely  to  boast  of  virtue  that  causes  him  to 
lose  caste  among  his  fellows.  Example,  evil  teaching,  per- 
nicious literature,  the  stage,  and  physiologic  promptings  incline 
him  to  accept  the  fatuous  notion  that  sexual  indulgence,  in  sea- 
son and  out  of  season,  legitimately  or  illegitimately,  is  a  neces- 
sary factor  in  the  life  of  the  male.  That  it  is  a  sine  qua  non  to 
manliness,  he  verily  believes.  All  of  the  environmental  con- 
ditions of  growing  youth  are  faulty  save — in  the  case  of  the 
fortunate  ones — the  moral  atmosphere  of  a  proper  home,  the 
great  inhibitor  of  all  moral  evils.  Even  here  physiology  and 
ignorance  often  combine  to  defeat  home  influences. 

Boys  should  be  disabused  of  the  idea  that  man's  life  revolves 
around  his  sexual  organs,  and  should  be  taught  that  the  creative 
principle  has  a  higher  aim  than  personal  gratification.  Above 
all,  they  should  be  taught  that  sexual  passion  is  not  only  sus- 
ceptible of  control,  but  that  the  man  who  cannot  control  it  is 
far  from  the  physical  ideal.  Youth  should  early  be  taught  that 
to  control  one's  appetite  makes  a  man  a  king  among  men,  but 
that  allowing  his  appetites  to  control  him  makes  him  a  slave  who 
can  never  enter  his  birthright.  The  lad's  selfishness  should  be 
appealed  to.  He  should  be  taught  that  physical  perfection  and 
early  sexual  indulgence  are  incompatible.  The  fallacy  that  sexual 
indulgence  is  necessary  to  good  health  should  be  dispelled.  When 
the  psycho-sexual  centres  are  not  stimulated  by  erotic  environ- 
mental impressions,  the  non-gratification  of  the  sexual  function 
is  unproductive  of  physical  deterioration.  The  sexual  function 
may,  in  an  environment  free  from  erotic  stimuli,  be  held  in 
abeyance  indefinitely,  without  general  or  sexual  deterioration. 
Boys  should  be  taught  that  the  ideal  of  manhood  is  physical  per- 
fection, and  that  early  indulgence  impairs  not  only  their  chances 
of  attaining  physical  perfection,  but  also  the  usefulness  and 
pleasure  of  the  function  at  maturity.  This  appeal  to  their  selfish- 
ness may  accomplish  more  than  an}-  amount  of  preaching. 

Boys  should  learn  the  dangers  of  venereal  disease.     Instruc- 


404  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

tion  in  this  direction  has  unfortunately  been  left  to  the  quacks. 
Free  museums  of  anatomy  and  pathology,  with  plenty  of  exhibits 
of  the  severe  forms  of  venereal  disease,  should  not  be  monopo- 
lized by  quacks  and  pretenders,  whose  object  is  to  terrorize 
youth  into  parting  with  its  pocket-money.  Such  museums  should 
be  established  and  maintained  at  public  expense,  and  lectures 
given  therein,  of  comprehensiveness  sufficient  to  the  needs  of  the 
laity. 

Upon  the  physician  devolves  the  major  part  of  the  duty  of 
instructing  the  public  in  the  delicate  matters  germane  to  sexual 
vice  and  crime.  That  he  neglects  this  duty  is  only  too  obvious. 
The  so-called  ethics  of  medicine  has  limited  the  sources  of 
public  instruction  to  charlatans  and  quacks.  There  is,  however, 
a  soul  of  good  in  things  evil,  and  the  warning  to  youth  im- 
parted by  quack  literature  is  better  than  nothing,  even  though  the 
object  of  the  quack  is  venal.  The  public  cannot  be  blamed ; 
it  must  get  its  information  as  best  it  can,  and  while  the  layman 
usually  dearly  loves  to  be  quacked,  he  is  often  open  to  instruc- 
tion from  reliable  sources.  The  quack  thrives  because  the 
medical  profession  has  neglected  its  plain  duty. 

Physicians  should  be  encouraged  to  write  and  disseminate 
among  the  public  dignified  and  discreet  treatises  on  various 
sexual  and  venereal  topics.  The  more  advanced  pupils  in  our 
boys'  schools  and  colleges  should  be  taught,  not  only  physiology, 
but  the  elementary  principles,  at  least,  of  venereal  pathology. 
Boys  should  be  taught  to  put  a  higher  premium  on  their  own, 
as  well  as  upon  female  virtue.  They  should  especially  under- 
stand that  he  who  is  a  slave  to  his  passions  not  only  degrades 
himself,  but  is  the  chief  factor  in  the  degradation  of  women. 

The  attention  of  the  profession  has  recently  been  pertinently 
called  to  the  question  of  venereal  prophylaxis.  A  recent  paper 
by  Dr.  Ludwig  Weiss  ^  presents  in  extenso  a  specious  plea  for 
the  prevention  of  venereal  diseases  by  the  use  of  antiseptic  and 
other  measures.  The  measures  advocated  may  be  broadly 
divided  into  two  classes, — viz. :    ( i )  Prevention  of  infection  of 


*  Journal  of  the  American  Medical  Association,  January  24,  1903. 


TREATMENT    OF    SEXUAL    VICE    AND    CRIME     405 

the  prostitute  and  her  patron.  (2)  Prevention  of  infection  of 
the  innocent. 

At  first  sight  there  would  seem  to  be  no  possible  objection  to 
either  class  of  measures.  On  analysis,  however,  the  first  class 
will  be  found  to  merit  very  grave  reflection. 

Is  it  not  the  duty  of  the  physician  to  suggest  continence, 
rather  than  antiseptics,  to  patients  who  seek  advice  on  the  ques- 
tion of  prophylaxis  ?  In  the  case  of  youths  who  have  had  no  ex- 
perience our  duty  is  plain.  We  should  not  remove  the  only 
inhibition — the  fear  of  consequences — that  exists  in  many  indi- 
viduals. The  suggestion  of  continence  is  thrown  away  upon  the 
experienced  man,  for  it  is  never  followed,  yet  it  is  our  plain  duty. 
That  the  medical  profession  should  endorse  prostitution  and 
constitute  itself  an  assurance  association  for  the  purpose  of 
removing  one  of  the  most  potent  checks  upon  the  spread  of  the 
social  evil  known  to  humanity  is  open  to  serious  question.  It  is 
my  belief  that  the  increase  of  patronage,  and  the  moral  effect 
of  the  tacit  endorsement  of  prostitution  thereby  involved,  would 
more  than  offset  any  possible  advantages  that  could  accrue  from 
the  attempt  at  prophylaxis.  Syphilis  would  increase  pari  passu 
with  increase  in  the  patronage  of  prostitution,  for  no  measure 
of  prophylaxis  would  prevent  immediate  infection  via  abrasions 
of  the  skin  or  mucous  membranes.  The  profession  cannot 
assume  precisely  the  same  attitude  towards  the  venereal  dis- 
eases that  it  does  towards  typhoid,  yellow  fever,  and  the  ex- 
anthemata, without  assuming  a  moral  responsibility  it  can  ill 
afford.  It  certainly  cannot  put  itself  on  record  as  believing  that 
fornication  is  as  much  a  part  of  human  necessities  as  is  food 
supply  and  proper  exercise.  Nor  is  it  the  duty  of  the  profession 
to  supervise  the  venereal  life  of  man  and  make  his  immorality 
sanitary,  just  as  it  has  tried  to  do  his  food  and  drink. 

In  order  that  the  arguments  in  favor  of  this  phase  of  venereal 
prophylaxis  shall  be  cogent,  it  must  be  shown,  beyond  cavil, — 

1.  That  prostitution  itself  is  not  increased  by  it. 

2.  That  immorality  of  youth  is  not  increased  by  it. 

3.  That  the  sum  total  of  venereal  disease,  including  syphilis, 
is  lessened. 


4o6  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

4.  The  corollary  of  the  foregoing,  that  fewer  infections  of 
the  innocent  result. 

That  prophylaxis  of  infection  of  others  by  the  speedy  and 
thorough  cure  of  afflicted  individuals  is  the  duty  of  the  pro- 
fession goes  without  saying.  Even  this,  if  done  ostentatiously, 
is  open  to  impeachment.  The  dispensaries  to  which  Parisian 
prostitutes  are  consigned  for  treatment,  are  daily  surrounded  by 
men  who  seek  for  women  whose  discharge  from  custody,  theo- 
retically cured,  is  accepted  as  a  guarantee  against  danger.  It  is 
the  duty  of  medical  men  to  impress  upon  the  laity  the  grave 
dangers  of  venereal  disease,  and  especially  the  long  duration  and 
protracted  infectiousness  of  deep-seated  gonorrhea  and  syphilis, 
involving,  as  they  do,  the  necessity  for  prolonged  and  thorough 
treatment.  In  this  enlightened  age  there  is  no  more  room  for 
the  ignoramus,  either  professional  or  lay,  who  believes  that 
gonorrhea  is  a  trivial  and  easily  curable  disease,  "  no  worse  than 
a  bad  cold,"  than  for  him  who  claims  syphilis  to  be  incurable. 
Special  hospitals,  or  special  wards  in  all  general  hospitals,  for 
the  treatment  of  venereal  diseases  are  demanded  in  every  large 
city.    Let  our  wealthy  philanthropists  take  notice. 

Should  the  venereal  hospital  be  a  "  lock  hospital,"  and  part 
of  a  system  of  compulsory  sanitary  inspection  ?  After  a  careful 
analysis  of  all  the  arguments,  pro  and  con,  with  reference  to 
sanitary  regulation  of  prostitution,  I  have  arrived  at  the  con- 
clusion that  such  a  system  is  not  practicable  in  America. 
Paternalism  and  interference  with  individual  liberty  are  so  un- 
popular in  this  country  that  legal  and  sanitary  measures  of 
repression  or  regulation  of  prostitution  must  of  necessity  fail. 
That  they  have  been  a  success  in  Europe,  as  many  claim,  is,  to 
my  mind,  absurd,  in  view  of  certain  statistics.  In  Paris  only 
ten  per  cent.,  and  in  Berlin  and  Vienna  (Muller-Nieman)  less 
than  fifteen  per  cent.,  of  the  entire  estimated  number  of  pros- 
titutes have  been  subjected  to  registry  and  control.  Regulation 
and  inspection  invariably  increase  clandestine  prostitution,  and 
as  the  greater  relative  infectiousness  of  the  clandestine  as  com- 
pared with  the  professional  prostitute  in  Paris  is  as  31.65  to 
13.47,  the  inference  is  obvious.     Statistics  of  the  frequency  of 


TREATMENT   OF    SEXUAL    VICE   AND    CRIME     407 

venereal  disease  I  consider  to  be  worse  than  valueless  as  an 
argument  in  favor  of  regulation — they  are  pernicious. 

As  a  broad  general  proposition,  I  believe  that,  while  volun- 
tary submission  to  inspection  by  prostitutes  should  be  encour- 
aged, and  public  institutions  for  the  cure  of  venereal  diseases 
established,  any  measures  of  compulsion  must  necessarily  not 
only  fail  but  become  a  pernicious  factor  in  the  social  and  political 
systems  of  our  large  American  cities. 

Licensing  of  prostitution,  or  any  recognition  of  it  as  an 
institution,  I  believe  to  be  absolutely  inimical  to  the  welfare  of 
society.  The  campaign  against  the  social  evil  should  be  con- 
ducted along  medical,  educational,  moral,  and  philanthropic 
lines,  absolutely  divorced  from  legal  and  political  measures  of 
coercion,  save  in  so  far  as  the  social  evil  may  be  a  factor  in 
crime  or  social  disorder,  or  may  obnoxiously  parade  itself  before 
the  public  eye. 

It  has  been  claimed  that  in  British  India  prostitution  in- 
creased after  the  removal  of  control,  and  that  the  proportion  of 
venereal  diseases  doubled  among  the  soldiers  thereafter.  This 
may  be  true,  but  what  prevails  in  India  under  militarism  is  no 
criterion  for  American,  nor  for  any  other  large  cities.  The 
source  of  supply  of  women  at  army  posts  is  extremely  localized, 
and  control  of  the  special  class  of  women  patronized  by  the 
soldiers  is  easy  and  effective,  as  compared  with  the  control  of  the 
prostitutes  of  a  large  metropolis  and  their  patrons.  As  to  the 
accuracy  of  the  Indian  statistics,  it  is  suggestive  that  their  com- 
piler also  claims  that  lues  has  become  much  more  malignant 
since  regulation  ceased.  If  the  analyst  of  the  statistics  was  no 
more  accurate  in  his  figures  than  in  his  fantastic  ideas  of  the 
conditions  determining  the  malignancy  of  lues,  his  conclusions 
would  best  be  taken  cum  grano  salis. 

The  most  thorough  and  logical  discussion  of  American  pros- 
titution and  its  causes  and  remedies  that  has  thus  far  appeared  is 
the  report  of  the  New  York  "  Committee  of  Fifteen."  -  The 
Committee's  conclusions  and  recommendations  are  well  worth 

*The  Social  Evil,  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons  Company,  New  York. 


4o8  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

quoting,  and  the  perusal  of  the  complete  report  should  be  profit- 
able to  any  one  who  desires  a  more  exhaustive  discussion  of  the 
regulation  question  than  the  scope  of  this  work  permits.  In 
abstract,  the  Committee  says  essentially  as  follows : 

1.  The  evidence  shows  that  extant  European  regulation  is 
not  a  remedy  for  prostitution,  nor  even  for  its  incidental  physical 
ills. 

2.  Moral  considerations  alone  suffice  to  stamp  as  intolerable 
compulsory  sanitary  inspection  of  prostitutes  for  the  purpose 
of  making  vice  innocuous. 

As  an  outline  of  a  practical  policy  of  dealing  with  the  sub- 
ject, the  following  is  submitted  : 

1.  Strenuous  efforts  should  be  made  to  prevent  tenement- 
house  overcrowding,  which  is  a  prolific  source  of  immorality, 
and  to  provide  better  home  environments  for  the  poor. 

2.  The  establishment  by  public  or  private  enterprise  of  pure 
and  elevating  forms  of  amusement  as  a  substitute  for  low-class 
dance-halls,  music-halls,  and  theatres,  which  serve  to  stimulate 
sensuality  and  debase  taste. 

3.  The  amelioration  of  those  conditions  of  the  wage-earning 
class  which  tend  to  produce  immorality  through  sheer  physical 
want. 

4.  The  establishment  of  institutions  for  the  treatment  of 
venereal  disease. 

5.  The  stern  repression  of  all  public  manifestations  of 
prostitution. 

6.  The  creation  of  a  special  body  of  "  morals  police,"  to 
whom  should  be  intrusted  all  the  duties  entailed  by  the  adoption 
of  the  foregoing  recommendations. 

It  is  to  be  regretted  that  the  Committee  of  Fifteen  did  not 
touch  upon  the  questions  of  physical  training  and  educational 
measures  in  the  prevention  of  prostitution. 

Apropos  of  the  treatment  of  the  evil  now  in  vogue,  a  word 
must  be  said  regarding  the  custom  of  street  solicitation.  This 
is  a  flagrant  source  of  immorality  and  disease.  At  present,  all 
that  is  done  in  Chicago  is  to  "  round  up"  and  fine  the  street- 
walkers at  stated  intervals.    The  frequency  of  the  "  round-ups" 


TREATMENT    OF    SEXUAL    VICE    AND    CRIME     409 

depends  upon  the  police  estimate  of  the  abihty  of  the  women  to 
stand  assessment.  The  street-walker  is  very  popular  with  the 
police,  and  a  never-failing  source  of  income  to  both  the  police 
and  alleged  "  hotels"  of  certain  districts.  She  is  a  stench  in  the 
nostrils  of  decency,  but  in  all  great  cities  she,  like  her  more 
affluent  sister  of  the  Red  Light  District,  is  necessary  to  police 
affluence. 

The  street-walker  should  become  a  thing  of  the  past.  The 
inexperienced  lad  and  the  country  "  Reuben"  alike  fall  victims 
to  her  wiles.  As  an  institution,  she  is  a  reflection  upon  humanity. 
But  what  shall  be  done  with  her?  She  can  rarely  be  reformed, 
and  she  must  have  food,  clothes,  and  lodging.  Let  her  be  given 
an  opportunity  to  earn  an  honest  living  in  some  industry  under 
municipal  control  and  ownership.  Should  she  refuse,  she  should 
be  given  her  choice  between  the  seclusion  of  the  brothel,  or  un- 
obtrusive clandestine  vice,  and  the  House  of  Correction.  First 
of  all,  I  repeat :  The  excuse  of  hunger  and  cold  must  be  done 
away  with,  by  providing  her  with  means  of  honorable  self- 
support.  She  should  not  be  compelled  to  work,  but  given  the 
opportunity  to  work.  If  she  declines  it,  let  her  then  retire  from 
the  public  view  as  best  she  may,  or  suffer  the  consequences.  A 
fine,  which  is  merely  a  percentage  commission  paid  for  the  privi- 
lege of  infamy,  and  makes  the  municipality  and  its  officers  co- 
partners in  prostitution,  is  a  satire  upon  humanity  and  morals, 
and  an  outrage  upon  misfortune. 

Any  special  tax,  license  or  other,  placed  upon  prostitution, 
either  stamps  it  as  a  moral  and  legitimate  occupation,  or  places 
the  authorities  on  the  plane  of  co-partnership  in  prostitution 
and  immorality.  Those  who  argue  in  favor  of  a  license  system 
may  take  their  choice.  Either  horn  of  the  dilemma  would  be 
a  moral  and  social  disaster. 

The  plays  and  books  indulged  in  by  the  young  demand  care- 
ful supervision.  As  I  have  previously  stated,  certain  things 
which  are  the  intellectual  meat  of  strong  men  are  often  deadly 
moral  poison  for  youth.  Openly  prurient  literature  is  often  no 
worse  in  this  respect  than  some  productions  that  pass  as  classics, 
so  far  as  the  effect  upon  the  undisciplined  mind  of  youth  is 


4IO  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

concerned.  High-class  literature  may  be  even  worse  than  the 
strictly  prurient  variety,  because  of  the  general  endorsement  of 
such  books,  and  the  refinement,  social  standing,  and  intellectual 
status  of  the  characters  depicted  therein. 

The  modern  newspaper  is  worthy  of  the  censorship  of 
parents  and  guardians.  It  is  a  great  educator  of  the  masses, 
it  is  true,  but  not  all  of  its  educational  features  are  conducive  to 
sound  moral  training  of  the  young. 

It  is  perfectly  possible  to  so  train  children  as  to  permit  of 
censorship  of  their  reading.  When  the  parent  or  guardian  has 
the  full  confidence  of  the  normal  child,  literary  restrictions  are 
not  likely  to  be  rebelled  against,  and  even  the  abnormal  child  is 
usually  susceptible  to  sufficient  control  to  permit  of  discrimina- 
tion in  the  selection  of  its  reading. 

Care  should  be  taken  not  to  expose  children  to  the  pernicious 
and  debasing  influence  of  the  rotten  modern  play,  and  to  correct 
such  views  of  life  as  the  example  of  some  celebrities  inculcates. 

The  importance  of  manual  training  and  moral,  physical,  and 
intellectual  education  in  their  relations  to  vice  and  crime  in  gen- 
eral has  been  expatiated  upon  in  another  chapter.  It  is  only 
necessary  to  emphasize  here  the  special  advantages  of  physio- 
logic muscle-training  in  facilitating  sexual  self-control.  Where 
the  superfluous  energy  of  growing  children,  and  especially  boys, 
is  directed  towards  muscular  development,  sexual  erethism  is 
lessened.  The  boy  whose  muscles  are  daily  properly  trained — 
i.e.,  to  the  point  of  physiologic  fatigue — is  much  more  amenable 
to  moral  persuasion  and  much  less  likely  to  have  vicious  sexual 
instincts  than  the  neurotic  weak  boy,  whose  unstable  nervous 
equilibrium  makes  him  a  ready  victim  of  sexual  temptation. 

Parents  should  guard  carefully  against  vicious  and  demoral- 
izing comradeships.  The  period  of  puberty,  when  the  psy- 
chology of  the  child  is  being  disturbed  by  hitherto  unknown 
sexual  impulses,  is  especially  dangerous  from  this  stand-point. 
Sexual  impressions  made  at  this  time  may  permanently  pervert 
the  psycho-sexual  centres.  '  Even  a  normal  child  may  be  con- 
verted into  a  sexual  pervert  by  sexual  stimuli  imparted  by 
one  of  the  same  sex  at  this  critical  period.     The  intimacies  of 


TREATMENT    OF    SEXUAL    VICE    AND    CRIME     411 

boarding-schools  and  colleges  are  often  responsible  for  sexual 
perversion  and  inversion.  The  character  of  the  future  sexuality 
of  the  pubescent  is  likely  to  be  dominated  by  early  sexual  im- 
pressions. Physicians  and  parents  would  do  well  to  study 
Adolphe  Belot's  "  Mile.  Giraud,"  in  which  the  dangers  of 
boarding-schools  for  girls  are  only  too  plainly  depicted. 

The  histories  of  such  pitiful  cases  as  that  of  Oscar  Wilde, 
who  was  in  his  day  the  literary  genius  of  Europe,  give  evidence 
that  society  would  better  devote  some  attention  to  a  certain 
very  disagreeable  subject,  one  that  reflects  uncomplimentarily 
upon  the  entire  civilized  portion  of  the  human  race. 

Close  intimacies  among  both  boys  and  girls  should  be 
avoided.  Innocence,  good  breeding,  and  normal  parentage  are 
often  of  little  avail  here,  especially  if  one  or  the  other  of  the 
intimates  is  naturally  depraved.  The  social  pleasures  of  both 
girls  and  boys  should  be  carefully  supervised. 

In  regard  to  boarding-schools,  something  special  should  be 
said.  It  is  my  opinion  that  there  are  very  few  of  these  institu- 
tions in  which  intelligent  supervision  is  exercised.  Wine-drink- 
ing, cigarette-smoking,  profanity,  card-playing,  and  sexual  vice 
are  often  indulged  in  by  both  girls  and  boys.  The  same  influence 
of  moral  specific  gravity  is  evidenced  here  as  in  other  circum- 
stances demanding  the  segregation  of  human  beings.  Teachers 
should  understand  this  and  guard  against  it.  More  accurate 
information  should  be  obtained  by  school  authorities  as  to  the 
moral  status  of  the  pupils.  I  recently  had  under  my  care  a  girl 
of  seventeen,  a  pupil  of  a  certain  fashionable  boarding-school, 
who  not  only  had  gonorrhea,  but  the  manners  of  a  demi-mon- 
daine.  She  spoke  glibly  of  "  our  set"  at  school, — a  set  that 
smoked  and  drank. 

Two  cases  have  recently  come  under  my  observation  of 
girls  who  became  enceinte  while  at  boarding-school.  If  be- 
trayed innocence  was  responsible  for  their  downfall,  these  girls 
must  have  learned  the  manners  of  the  street  very  quickly,  for 
they  were  of  the  type  that  can  be  seen  any  night  in  the  shadow 
spaces  of  our  down-town  streets.  One  girl  of  this  stamp  can 
corrupt  a  large  number  of  pupils,  who,  even  more  than  the  adult. 


412  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

tend  to  sink  to  the  level  of  the  lowest,  rather  than  to  rise  to  the 
plane  of  the  highest,  of  their  associates. 

The  evils  of  alcoholism  should  be  impressed  upon  both  boys 
and  girls,  and  especially  the  latter.  There  is  no  such  thing  as 
moderate  indulgence  for  women.  The  seductive  signs,  "  Ladies' 
Entrance,"  and  "  Family  Entrance,"  over  the  side  doors  of 
saloons  are  an  insult  to  human  intelligence,  and  a  reflection  upon 
womanhood.  One  might  fancy  a  similar  sign  over  the  gates 
of  hell. 

Much  can  be  done  for  women  by  knocking  fallacious,  imma- 
ture conceptions  of  the  ideal  out  of  the  young  girl's  head.  The 
ideal  of  which  she  dreams  is  likely  to  be  realized  in  the  first  man 
who  pays  her  attention.  Propinquity  builds  ideals  sometimes 
— dangerous  ones.  All  depends  on  whether  he  whom  she  ideal- 
izes is  trustworthy.  Her  conception  of  the  ideal  is  merely  the 
maternal  instinct,  plus  a  concatenation  of  early  ovarian  reflexes, 
— physiologic  in  foundation,  but  perverted  and  distorted  by  hot- 
house literature  and  other  environmental  evils, — associated  with 
puerility  of  judgment  and  absolute  inexperience.  Such  ideals 
are  usually  misleading,  and  often  disastrous.  When  Voltaire 
said,  "  Every  woman  has  her  quarter  of  an  hour,"  he  slandered 
the  sex,  but  he  unconsciously  made  obeisance  to  the  maternal 
instinct  and  the  ovarian  reflex.  Character  study  and  the  devel- 
opment of  discrimination  should  precede  the  building  of  ideals. 
The  idealized  of  to-day  is  perhaps  the  despised  of  to-morrow. 
Love  at  first  sight  often  leads  to  divorce  at  second  sight. 

Fallacious  notions  of  the  ideal  and  incomprehension  of  the 
principle  of  self-preservation  are  responsible  for  a  most  dan- 
gerous peculiarity  of  young  women.  The  man  who  is  stamped 
as  dissolute  and  depraved  has  often  an  absolute  fascination  for 
them.  Given  the  same  or  even  less  favorable  opportunities,  and 
the  reprobate  can  usually  win  a  girl  away  from  a  large  field 
of  decent  and  orderly  competitors.  Warnings  and  an  expose 
of  the  true  character  of  the  man  rarely  do  more  than  hasten  the 
wedding-bells,  or  worse.  The  author  of  the  story  of  the  Snake 
in  Eden  knew  woman  nature,  however  ignorant  of  science  he 
may  have  been. 


TREATMENT    OF    SEXUAL    VICE    AND    CRIME     413 

Young  girls  should  be  given  to  understand  that,  while  a 
happy  marriage  is  the  natural  fate  of  woman,  spinsterhood  is 
not  only  no  disgrace,  but  far  preferable  to  an  unhappy  marriage, 
which,  for  discomfort,  must  discount  hell.  They  should  under- 
stand that  a  happy  marriage  is  not  always  the  outgrowth  of  a 
youthful  ideal.  Ideals  do  not  always  stand  the  fire  of  connubial 
experience.  The  physical  and  intellectual  attractions  of  the 
girlish  ideal  are  often  an  insecure  foundation  for  future  happi- 
ness and  comfort.  The  idea  that  marriage  is  a  partnership  for 
the  battle  of  life  should  dominate  woman's  mind.  I  am  well 
aware  that,  as  matters  stand  at  present,  woman  has  relatively 
little  voice  in  selection.  Such  voice  as  society  permits  her  to 
have,  however,  she  should  exercise  to  the  full. 

The  hazard  of  matrimony  has  attracted  the  attention  and 
study  of  some  of  our  most  profound  thinkers.  The  suggestion 
of  time  contracts  in  marriage — which  in  effect  is  probationary 
marriage — by  so  eminent  a  student  as  Professor  E.  D.  Cope,  is 
not  without  meaning.^  From  whatever  angle  the  moralist 
may  view  matrimony  in  its  relations  to  sexual  vice,  the  man 
who  marries  a  face  and  the  woman  who  marries  a  pocket-book 
are  serious  matters  for  consideration. 

So  far  as  matrimonial  infelicity  in  its  relations  to  prostitu- 
tion is  concerned,  I  do  not  believe  that  morality  can  be  conserved 
by  making  divorce  difficult.  This,  as  elsewhere  remarked,  puts 
a  penalty  upon  unavoidable  mistakes  in  matrimonial  selection. 
There  should  be  no  impediments  to  divorce  where  harmonious 
relations  are  impossible,  providing  that,  where  there  are  chil- 
dren, due  and  satisfactory  provision  for  their  support  and  train- 
ing is  made,  and  further,  providing  that  the  man  is  compelled 
to  care  for  the  woman  where  she  is  not  proved  to  be  at  fault. 

The  sooner  the  world  comes  to  regard  marriage  as  a  civil 
and  social  contract,  upon  the  fulfilment  of  which  rests  the  very 
foundation  of  society,  the  better  for  the  human  race.  The 
"  divinity  of  matrimony  is  as  absurd  as  the  cosmogony  of  Gene- 
sis, from  which  its  theory  was  derived.    As  a  human  institution. 

'The  Open  Court,  November,  1888. 


414  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

it  deserves  all  the  consideration  that  philosophic  altruism  can 
give  it.  As  a  divine  institution,  it  is  open  to  impeachment.  The 
"  sanitary"  marriage  of  which  sociologic  idealists  are  wont  to 
dream  will  never  be  realized  so  long  as  the  alleged  divinity  of 
matrimony  permeates  society.  When  matrimony  is  shorn  of 
its  theologic  bias,  and  resolved  into  its  true  status  as  the  sheet 
anchor  of  society,  stirpiculture  may  have  its  day. 

Young  girls  should  be  taught  sufficient  selfishness  to  put 
them  on  the  defensive.  They  should  learn  that  familiarity  not 
preceded  by  respectful  formality  along  prospective  matrimonial 
lines  means  disrespect  and  danger,  and  that  men  respect  woman 
in  proportion  as  she  respects  herself.  They  should  know  that 
men  talk,  and  that  roues  are  given  to  boasting.  If  women  were 
more  familiar  with  the  masculine  application  to  the  opposite  sex 
of  the  "  What  man  has  done,  man  may  do,"  maxim,  they  would 
be  more  guarded.  The  slightest  tolerance  of  familiarity  often 
makes  a  woman's  name  a  byword  and  a  reproach.  One  thing 
she  should  ever  bear  in  mind, — namely,  love  should  wait  on 
judgment. 

Many  girls  are  imbued  with  the  idea  that  coquetry  is  an 
innocent  accomplishment.  To  say  the  least,  the  coquette  courts 
danger,  and  trusts  to  luck  to  escape  paying  the  price  of  her 
diversion.  Mantegazza  was  not  far  wrong  when  he  said,  "  The 
virtue  of  the  coquette  is  purely  physical."  The  prevalent 
masculine  theory  is  that,  given  opportunity,  the  woman  who 
flirts  will  do  worse. 

Mere  moral  and  religious  training,  while  well  enough  so  far 
as  they  go,  are  often  ineffective  as  repressants  of  female  im- 
morality, simply  because  the  young  girl  observes  that  the 
standard  of  virtue  and  morality  is  largely  a  matter  of  opinion. 
When  she  sees  examples  about  her  that  set  at  naught  all  of  the 
principles  enunciated  by  her  parents  and  religious  mentors,  her 
immature  conceptions  of  her  relations  to  her  environment  are 
likely  to  become,  first  confused,  and  finally  perverted.  Espe- 
cially is  this  likely  to  follow  where  the  vicious  example  is  lion- 
ized by  society. 

The  home  is  the  greatest  moral  inhibitor  in  society.     Ex- 


TREATMENT    OF    SEXUAL    VICE    AND    CRIME     415 

perience  shows  that  even  the  worst  of  home  surroundings  is 
better  than  none,  in  the  present  state  of  our  social  system,  in 
which  society's  obligation  to  waifs  is  practically  ignored.  When 
public  and  private  effort  is  directed  to  the  improvement  of  home 
surroundings,  much  good  will  be  done  in  the  direction  of  pre- 
venting prostitution.  Cleanly  and  healthful  surroundings  for 
the  poor  tend  to  increase  sex  self-respect,  and  with  increased 
self-respect  comes  a  lessening  of  immoral  tendencies.  The 
overcrowded  tenement  affords  no  privacy  for  the  sexes.  A 
community  of  sex  association  does  not  tend  to  immorality  among 
savages,  perhaps,  but  it  is  certainly  disastrous  to  the  morals  of 
civilization,  because  of  the  difference  in  primitive  and  civilized 
standards  of  morals,  and  the  relatively  greater  viciousness  of 
civilized  man. 

With  increased  public  and  philanthropic  interest  in  the  fate 
of  poor  and  friendless  female  children  will  come  a  decrease  in 
the  proportion  of  prostitutes.  Society's  neglect  of  destitute 
female  children  is  even  worse  than  its  indifference  to  the  fate  of 
boys.  What  has  been  elsewhere  said  of  the  duty  of  society 
towards  children  in  general  is  especially  pertinent  as  applied  to 
the  female. 

The  latter-day,  ultra-materialistic  theories  of  degeneracy  as 
a  cause  of  prostitution  will  lead  us  to  the  Nowhere  of  Progress 
in  Sociology,  so  far  as  the  social  evil  is  concerned,  unless,  after 
recognizing  the  innate  predisposition  of  many  women  to  prosti- 
tution, we  regard  it  as  a  demand  for  the  protection  of  all  women, 
and  especially  the  degenerate,  against  the  influences  that  point 
the  way  to  the  brothel. 

With  strange  inconsistency,  the  law  has  not  concerned  itself 
with  the  sexual  debauchment  of  boys,  which  is  so  important  in 
its  bearing  upon  prostitution.  The  "  age  of  consent"  estab- 
lished for  the  protection  of  the  female  in  various  States  is  a  sop 
thrown  to  that  Cerberus,  social  conscience,  and  is  made  ridicu- 
lous in  certain  quarters.  The  age  of  consent  is  so  low  in  some 
States  as  to  lead  one  to  wonder  what  manner  of  brutes  framed 
the  law.  With  all  its  absurdities  and  inconsistencies,  however, 
it  is  still  to  a  certain  degree  deterrent  of  sexual  vice  and  crime. 


4i6  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

The  debauchment  of  the  male  should  be  guarded  against  by 
similar  laws.  The  admission  of  either  males  or  females  under 
age  to  houses  of  prostitution  should  be  visited  by  severe  penal- 
ties, no  matter  what,  if  any,  age  of  consent  may  be  estab- 
lished. 

The  modern  tendency  to  train  girls  to  be  social  butterflies  is 
a  great  evil,  one  that  is  easier  to  criticise  adversely  than  to 
correct.  Mothers  set  the  example,  and  girls  follow  only  too 
willingly.  Domestic  duties  and  accomplishments  are  considered 
unrefined  and  undignified.  Dress  and  society  are  the  key-notes 
of  the  modern  hot-house  method  of  training  girls.  Girls  trained 
in  this  manner  are  in  danger  from  their  very  helplessness,  when 
they  are  suddenly  thrown  upon  their  own  resources  or  marry 
men  who  cannot  provide  the  luxuries  and  social  refinements  to 
which  they  are  accustomed.  The  so-called  "  higher  education" 
fails  here.  This  evil  will  prevail  so  long  as  mothers  encourage 
in  their  daughters  a  spirit  of  resentment  or  indifference  to  do- 
mestic duties  as  something  unworthy  or  undignified.  The  poor 
man's  daughter,  who  believes  herself  better  than  her  hard- 
working mother,  is  always  in  danger.  The  typewriter  is 
mightier  and  more  attractive  than  the  washboard,  one  must 
admit ;  that  it  is  morally  more  dangerous,  none  can  justly  deny. 
That  it  will  continue  to  be  a  dangerous  implement,  until  human 
nature  changes,  is  self-evident. 

The  age  which  shall  restore  the  dignity  of  domestic  labor 
will  do  a  great  work  in  antagonizing  the  social  evil.  Re- 
spectable and  comfortable  homes,  with  excellent  wages,  will  be 
open  to  thousands  of  women  in  this  country  as  soon  as  they  are 
willing  to  do  for  an  independent  living  the  same  amount  and 
character  of  work  that  most  sensible  women  would  gladly  do 
for  husband  and  children  with  a  mere  existence  as  compensa- 
tion. The  woman  in  domestic  service  is  healthier,  more  com- 
fortable, better  protected,  better  paid,  and  more  independent,  so 
far  as  securing  and  holding  a  position  are  concerned,  than  the 
average  shop-  and  factory-girl  or  female  clerk.  She  is  in  a 
better  position  even  than  many  married  women,  so  far  as  the 
material  comforts  of  life  are  concerned.    The  cry  of  "  necessity" 


TREATMENT   OF    SEXUAL   VICE   AND   CRIME     417 

as  a  cause  of  prostitution  is  not  so  valid  as  it  might  be,  after  all, 
so  long  as  female  labor  in  domestic  life  is  as  scarce  as  it  is  at 
present. 

Not  only  is  woman,  in  general,  becoming  demoralized  by  her 
present  attitude  towards  domestic  occupations,  but  the  home-life 
of  this  country  is  becoming  sadly  disorganized.  Were  it  possible 
to  obtain  domestic  labor,  many  city  flat-dwellers  would  have 
comfortable  suburban  homes,  with  moral  and  healthful  sur- 
roundings for  their  children,  instead  of  the  evil  atmosphere  of 
the  city. 

The  problem  of  the  superfluous  woman,  and  the  woman  out 
of  whom  the  great  industrial  Juggernaut  is  crushing  the  life- 
blood  and  decency,  is  one  of  the  most  vital  points  in  the  preven- 
tion of  prostitution.  Social  conventionality  and  moral  ex- 
pediency in  Christian  countries  have  evolved  laws  that  prevent 
man  from  marrying  more  than  one  woman  at  a  time,  but  it  is 
his  duty,  as  the  bulwark  of  the  State,  to  see  that  all  women  are 
cared  for  so  far  as  possible.  Conditions  should  be  such  that  no 
woman  would  be  compelled  to  sell  herself  for  bread.  She  is 
responsible  for  her  person,  so  far  as  her  impulses  go ;  she  is  not 
responsible  for  the  necessities  that  drive  her  to  prostitution. 
Her  charms  are  ofttimes  her  only  capital.  With  necessity  staring 
her  in  the  face,  who  should  damn  her  for  making  the  best  terms 
she  can  for  self-preservation?  The  legal  right  of  woman  to 
sell  herself  on  the  best  terms  possible,  providing  she  thereby 
violates  no  right  of  others,  is  tacitly  conceded  in  all  social 
systems.  That  she  should  ever  be  compelled  to  do  so  from 
necessity  is  a  blot  upon  civilization.  As  conditions  now  are, 
nothing  practical  is  done  to  relieve  this  necessity  save  the  effects 
of  individual  philanthropy,  and  this  does  not  usually  emanate 
from  the  class  of  persons  best  able  to  bear  the  financial  burden. 
If,  instead  of  liberal  church  endowments,  donations  to  colleges 
and  universities,  and  gifts  of  libraries,  our  wealthy  men  would 
devote  themselves  to  the  amelioration  of  the  conditions  under- 
lying vice  and  crime,  they  would  accomplish  ten  thousand-fold 
more  good  to  humanity  than  they  are  doing  at  present.  What 
the   people    from   whose    ranks   criminals   and   prostitutes   arc 

27 


4i8  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

derived  most  need  is  not  libraries  and  higher  educational  insti- 
tutions— they  need  bread  and  butter,  clothes  to  wear,  bathing 
facilities,  clean  and  wholesome  surroundings,  and  manual  train- 
ing. But,  our  wealthy  men  would  not  be  satisfied  with  philan- 
thropic enterprises  the  drum-beat  of  which  could  not  be  heard 
in  the  market-place.  Homes,  living  wages,  refined  amusements, 
and  educational  influences  within  her  intellectual  grasp  would  do 
more  for  the  working-woman  than  all  the  churches  and  universi- 
ties combined.  A  "  Merchant  Prince"  donates  a  large  sum  of 
money  to  found  a  museum.  Through  philanthropy?  No,  to 
advertise  for  the  present,  build  a  monument  for  himself,  and  per- 
petuate his  name  long  after  the  true  worker  for  humanity  has 
been  forgotten.  Fame  may  be  bought  with  money.  I  am  not 
sure  that  "  immortality"  is  not  to  be  had  for  a  price.  If  the 
Merchant  Prince  would  devote  the  same  amount  of  money  that 
he  donates  to  enterprises  heralded  from  the  house-tops  to  in- 
creasing the  wages  of  his  thousands  of  employees,  he  would 
accomplish  much  more  practical  good.  The  millionaire  phil- 
anthropist who  shall  devote  his  fortune  to  placing  a  greater  or 
less  number  of  women  beyond  the  necessity  of  selling  themselves 
for  bread  may  be  well  called,  after  the  manner  of  the  Mohamme- 
dans, Eflfendi,  the  Blessed. 

There  is  a  great  demand  for  proper  recreation  and  amuse- 
ment for  working-women.  Woman  instinctively  abhors  the 
humdrum  of  life,  and  only  too  often  pays  the  highest  possible 
price  for  diversion.  Men  are  not  slow  in  asking  the  price. 
What  opportunity  has  the  average  working-girl  to  attend  the 
proper  play,  or  indulge  in  any  form  of  social  recreation  ?  Money 
and  suitable  dress  are  lacking,  and  a  decent  escort  difficult  to 
find.  The  average  man  considers  the  self-supporting  woman 
fair  game.  The  very  thing  that  should  win  his  respect  and 
esteem  is  regarded  by  him  as  evidence  that  the  woman  is  at 
least  open  to  argument.  What  a  magnificent  field  there  is  for 
play-houses  and  music-halls  for  working-people,  supported  by 
private  philanthropy,  and  devoted  to  education  as  well  as  amuse- 
ment. As  an  auxiliary  to  amusements  for  women,  better  legal 
protection  for  respectable  women  who  are  unattended  by  escorts 


TREATMENT   OF    SEXUAL   VICE   AND   CRIME     419 

would  be  useful.  A  legal  machine  for  "  mashing"  the  masher 
would  do  great  good. 

The  "  Noon-Day  Rest,"  established  by  philanthropic  women 
for  working-girls  in  Chicago,  is  one  of  the  grandest  institutions 
ever  devised  for  self-supporting  women.  A  number  of  these 
"  Rests"  are  in  operation.  Here  the  tired  girl  may  repose  in 
peace  and  quiet,  in  refined  and  comfortable  surroundings.  Her 
lunch  is  provided  at  the  lowest  possible  rates.  The  break  in  the 
monotony  of  toil,  and  the  avoidance  of  the  temptation  to  secure 
a  meal  at  "  man's  price,"  which  she  cannot  otherwise  afford, 
are  by  no  means  the  least  of  the  blessings  of  the  Noon-Day 
Rest. 

Home-like  hotels  and  boarding-houses  for  worthy  self- 
supporting  persons,  and  especially  for  women,  are  the  crying 
need  of  the  hour  and  the  philanthropists  opportunity.  Clean 
and  wholesome  food,  refined  surroundings,  and  light  and  cheery 
rooms  at  moderate  prices  would  do  more  to  increase  the  self- 
esteem  and  comfort  of  working-girls  than  anything  that  could 
be  mentioned.  At  present  it  is  well-nigh  impossible  for  the 
woman  who  is  dependent  upon  her  own  industry  to  secure  a 
boarding-place  that  is  comfortable  and  home-like,  within  her 
scanty  means,  and  free  from  evil  influences  and  associations. 
Men  can  much  more  easily  find  tolerable  places  in  which  to  live, 
although  even  here  much  could  be  done.  Special  homes  for 
women  should  restrict  their  liberty  as  little  as  possible,  con- 
sistent with  good  behavior.  Some  efforts  at  the  establishment 
of  such  homes  have  failed  because  of  the  reformatory  methods 
applied  to  decent  women,  who  are,  or  should  be,  free  factors. 
The  rules  should  be  reasonable,  especially  as  regards  receiving 
friends,  but  the  management  should  keep  in  close  touch  with  the 
inmates  of  the  home,  and  keep  a  parental  eye  upon  them. 
Should  a  woman  prove  herself  unworthy,  she  should  thereafter 
be  denied  the  privileges  of  the  home.  The  "  charity"  aspect  of 
such  homes  should  be  kept  in  the  background.  The  boarders 
should  pay  according  to  their  abilities,  and  the  management 
should  know  what  salary  they  receive. 

The  health  boards  of  our  large  cities  should  be  invested  with 


420  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

greater  power  to  regulate  the  sanitary  conditions  under  which 
women  work.  Abundant  Hght,  cleanhness,  plenty  of  air-space, 
and  sanitary  conveniences  for  physiologic  necessities  should  be 
insisted  upon.  Provision  should  be  made  against  all  the  con- 
ditions inimical  to  health,  characterizing  certain  special  occupa- 
tions, and  the  necessary  regulations  strictly  enforced.  The 
laws  regulating  child  labor  should  be  particularly  enforced  in 
the  case  of  female  workers,  and  the  home  surroundings  of  chil- 
dren forced  into  idleness  because  they  are  under  the  prescribed 
age  limit  carefully  investigated.  Much  harm  may  be  done  by 
neglecting  this.  Some  families  are  so  dependent  upon  the  labor 
of  their  children  that  great  physical  and  moral  disaster  may 
result  from  preventing  them  from  working.  Great  circum- 
spection is  necessary  here,  lest  child  labor  be  replaced  by  worse 
conditions. 

The  hours  of  working-women  and  the  compensation  received 
demand  the  strictest  supervision.  The  commercial  Shylock, 
striving  for  his  pound  of  flesh,  has  had  his  own  way  in  grind- 
ing out  the  very  life  and  morality  of  working-women  far  too 
long.  The  industrial  Juggernaut  has  crushed  millions  into  the 
earth,  and  has  been  allowed  to  go  unmolested  on  its  soul-shrivel- 
ling career,  until  it  is  no  wonder  that  the  wageworker  has  occa- 
sionally risen  in  rebellion.  The  spectacle  of  a  multi-millionaire 
donating  to  charity  thousands  of  dollars  amassed  in  the  sale  of 
garments  made  for  a  mere  pittance  by  half-starved  sewing- 
women  is  an  anomaly  which  will  one  day  be  out  of  harmony 
with  the  spirit  of  the  age.  Hood's  "  Song  of  the  Shirt"  was 
the  apotheosis  of  the  female  toiler. 

The  day  may  be  far  distant  when  municipalities  will  operate 
in  antagonizing  the  social  evil  along  the  lines  suggested  in  the 
foregoing  chapter,  but  once  private  philanthropy  is  seriously 
interested,  great  good  will  be  accomplished.  As  one  of  our 
humorous  writers  has  satirically  remarked,  "  In  uplifting  the 
masses  we  should  get  underneath." 

The  remedies  for  the  local  diseases  of  various  kinds  that  so 
often  underlie  sexual  vice  and  crime  have  no  place  in  this  volume. 
Suffice  it  to  say  that  these  pathologic  conditions,  in  both  male 


TREATMENT   OF    SEXUAL   VICE   AND    CRIME     421 

and  female,  are  often  amenable  to  proper  medical  or  surgical 
treatment.  Sexual  perversion  and  inversion  of  an  acquired  form 
are  sometimes  curable  by  suggestion,  a  therapeutic  field  that 
cannot  be  considered  here.  The  congenital  variety  is  incurable. 
All  incurable  victims  should  be  permanently  removed  from  our 
social  system.  They  are  sources  of  moral  contagion  and  pro- 
moters of  sexual  crime  to  whom  the  right  to  remain  in  society 
should  be  denied. 

TREATMENT   OF    NEGRO    RAPISTS 

There  is  an  unwritten  law  in  the  South,  from  which  there  is 
no  appeal,  that  the  negro  rapist  shall  meet  with  summary  exe- 
cution, whenever  and  wherever  he  is  found.  It  is  also  coming 
to  be  an  almost  universal  custom  to  apply  the  principle  of 
revenge  in  the  most  horrible  manner  conceivable.  Judge  Lynch 
is  growing  more  and  more  diabolically  exacting,  year  by  year, 
and  Southern  communities  vie  with  each  other  in  inventing  fresh 
punitive  horrors  for  the  intimidation  of  negroes  of  criminal  ten- 
dencies. The  West,  even,  has  followed  the  example  of  the 
South,  and  Kansas,  Colorado,  Indiana,  and  Illinois  have  each 
added  a  black  page  to  America's  history  of  crimes  perpetrated 
to  avenge  crime. 

It  is  easy  for  one  at  a  distance  to  sit  in  judgment  upon  the 
acts  of  people  infuriated  by  the  commission  of  a  horrible  crime 
in  their  own  community,  and  often  as  unfair  as  it  is  easy,  espe- 
cially when  the  critic  is  actuated  by  mere  sentiment.  I  am  not 
unmindful  of  the  extreme  provocation  under  which  mobs  have 
wreaked  their  vengeance  upon  offending  blacks,  nor  am  I  entirely 
out  of  sympathy  with  the  spirit  of  revenge  that  underlies  the 
lynching  of  negro  rapists,  so  far  as  it  is  personal  to  individuals 
who  have  suffered  from  outrages  upon  those  near  and  dear  to 
them.  The  matter,  however,  should  be  considered  from  the 
social,  not  the  individual,  stand-point,  and  the  Southern  method 
of  dealing  with  the  problem  submitted  to  the  crucial  test,  ctti 
bono?  What  good  has  been  accomplished  by  the  shootings, 
hangings,  and  burnings?  Is  there  any  method  that  is  likely  to 
be  more  effective  in  repressing  the  evil? — for  this,  not  revenge, 


422  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

should  be  the  object  of  any  method  of  dealing  with  the  ravisher, 
white  or  black. 

As  a  general  proposition,  I  unhesitatingly  affirm  that  the 
American  method  of  dealing  with  black  violateurs  is  illogical, 
ineffective,  and  attended  by  a  disturbed  morale  of  the  community 
in  which  the  summary  executions  occur,  that  more  tiian  neutral- 
izes any  advantages  that  might  by  any  possibility  accrue  from 
them.  That  the  method  is  ineffective  is  admitted  by  all  think- 
ing men  in  the  South.  The  late  Dr.  Hunter  McGuire,  in  a 
letter  to  me,  said,  ''  Sexual  crimes  on  the  part  of  the  negro  in 
the  South  are  becoming  more  and  more  frequent.  This  despite 
the  horrors  of  the  punishment  inflicted  on  the  criminal." 

Admitting,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  the  justice  and  neces- 
sity of  summary  lynchings  in  the  South, — which  is  tantamount 
to  the  admission  that  anarchy,  not  law,  prevails  in  that  section, 
— there  are  still  certain  special  points  that  are  open  to  serious 
question. 

No  process  of  reasoning  can  possibly  justify  the  burning 
alive  of  the  negro  ravisher.  Such  treatment,  though  well  de- 
served, and  horrible  enough  to  satisfy  the  most  epicurean  taste 
for  diabolic  revenge,  cannot  possibly  be  more  effective  than  a 
more  humane  execution  by  the  bullet  or  rope.  With  the  de- 
parture of  the  vital  spark  from  the  lyncher's  victim  all  impres- 
sion made  by  the  horrible  manner  of  execution  ceases.  That  the 
moral  effect  upon  prospective  criminals  is  not  deterrent  is  shown 
by  the  fact  that  rape  has  been  at  least  as  frequent,  if  not  more 
frequent,  since  cremating  negroes  alive  came  into  fashion,  as  in 
the  days  when  revenge  was  satisfied  with  more  humane  methods 
of  despatching  its  victims.  As  elsewhere  remarked,  crimes  feed 
upon  punitive  brutality.     History  demonstrates  this. 

As  rape  is  often  perpetrated  by  white  men,  and  no  white 
man  has  ever  been  used  as  material  for  a  bonfire,  the  negroes 
of  America  are  chiefly  impressed  and  justly  enraged  by  the 
unjust  discrimination  against  the  black  race,  especially  as  it  is 
not  for  rape  alone  that  he  is  discriminated  against.  The  bar- 
barity of  the  execution  obscures  its  justice,  and  the  result  is  a 
bitter  and  rebellious  spirit  among  the  blacks  as  a  class.     Any 


TREATMENT   OF    SEXUAL   VICE   AND    CRIME     423 

"  moral"  effect  that  roasting  a  negro  might  have  is  dissipated 
by  this  spirit.  The  black  also  recognizes  as  the  spirit  actuating 
a  mob  seeking  revenge  upon  a  negro  ravisher,  "  Kill  the  right 
nigger  if  you  can  catch  him,  but  any  nigger  will  do  for  an  ex- 
ample." The  same  spirit  actuated  Charles  IX.  in  ordering  the 
massacre  of  the  Huguenots,  when  he  said,  "  Kill  them  all,  God 
will  know  his  own."  Hair-splitting  questions  of  identity  do  not 
worry  the  average  mob,  in  any  part  of  the  country,  and,  as  the 
majority  of  lynchers  believe  that  "  the  only  good  nigger  is  a 
dead  nigger,"  a  mistake  is  not  likely  to  be  a  matter  to  lose 
sleep  over.  The  prevailing  sentiment  reminds  me  of  the  story 
of  the  Western  mob  that  lynched  the  wrong  man.  The  leader 
of  the  lynchers  called  upon  the  victim's  widow,  explained 
matters,  and  said,  "  I  reckon,  ma'am,  the  joke's  on  us,  good 
and  plenty." 

There  are  those  in  the  South  who  assert  that  the  negro  is  a 
brute  without  a  soul,  and  should  be  treated  like  one.  To  this 
I  reply,  that,  were  he  treated  like  a  brute,  roasting  bees  would 
stop.  If  a  Southern  child  were  bitten  by  a  rabid  dog,  and  some 
one  should  capture  the  animal,  tie  him  to  a  tree,  saturate  him 
with  kerosene,  and  apply  the  torch,  a  hundred  pistols  would  be 
drawn  in  defence  of  the  helpless  brute,  or  I  overestimate  the 
manliness  of  the  South.  To  pronounce  the  negro  a  soulless 
brute,  is  to  absolve  him  from  all  criminal  responsibility. 

A  special  source  of  fallacy  in  the  infliction  of  a  horrible  death 
by  burning  is  the  fact  that  only  the  negroes  of  the  immediate 
locality  in  which  the  execution  occurs  are  likely  to  know  of  it. 
The  class  of  blacks  at  which  the  supposed  deterrent  effects  are 
aimed  is  the  lowest  and  most  illiterate.  Not  being  able  to  read, 
those  at  a  distance  from  the  scene  of  the  tragedy  may  never 
learn  of  it  save  by  accident.  So  far  as  those  who  do  hear  of  the 
horrible  executions,  in  all  its  details,  are  concerned,  the  moral 
effect  is  slight  and  transient.  The  more  brutish  of  the  negroes, 
the  class  from  which  sexual  crimes  are  expected,  are  of  such  a 
low  grade  of  mentality  that  current  events  soon  obliterate  all 
recollections  of  the  crime,  the  criminal,  and  his  punishment.  Tn 
general,  any  method  of  punishment  that  results  in  the  death  of 


424  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

the  criminal,  or  is  liable  to  be  forgotten  by  prospective  criminals, 
is  illogical  and  ineffective. 

In  my  opinion  there  is  but  one  logical  method  of  dealing  with 
the  rapist,  and  that  is  total  ablation  of  the  sexual  organs.  The 
criminal  is  thereby  not  only  incapacitated  from  a  repetition  of 
the  crime,  but  put  beyond  the  power  of  procreating  his  kind. 
A  few  "  complete"  eunuchs  scattered  throughout  the  South 
would  really  be  the  conservation  of  energy,  so  far  as  the  re- 
pression of  sexual  crime  is  concerned.  Executed,  they  would 
be  forgotten ;  unsexed  and  free,  they  would  be  a  constant  warn- 
ing and  ever-present  admonition  to  others  of  their  race.  I  do 
not  advocate  this  method  of  dealing  with  sexual  crimes  upon 
the  illogical  principle  of  revenge,  yet  the  most  ardent  advocate 
of  that  principle  should  find  no  fault  with  it. 

To  be  effectual,  asexualization  should  be  enforced  against 
rapists  of  whatever  color.  Unjust  discrimination  against  the 
blacks  merely  serves  to  defeat  the  purpose  of  the  method.  The 
double  color  standard  of  virtue  has  already  worked  great  harm. 

Like  all  methods  of  dealing  with  crime,  asexualization  should 
be  made  statutory,  to  be  inflicted  only  after  proper  legal  pro- 
ceedings have  unequivocally  established  his  guilt.  Here,  as  else- 
where, great  caution  is  necessary  to  avoid  injury  to  the  innocent. 
The  danger  of  the  latter  is  especially  great  in  the  court  of  Judge 
Lynch. 

There  is  little  doubt  that  innocent  negroes  have  suffered 
horrible  deaths  at  the  hands  of  mobs.*  Identification  of  the 
criminal  is  often  difficult.  That  the  half-crazed  victim  of  the 
assault  is  often  incapable  of  identifying  her  assailant  is  un- 
questionable. The  resemblance  between  negroes  is  very  strong, 
and  the  woman's  fright  and  the  circumstances  surrounding  the 
assault  effectually  preclude  the  possibility  of  her  identifying  the 
rapist  in  many  cases.  This,  however,  as  already  stated,  is  only 
too  often  a  minor  consideration  with  the  mob  that  has  the  case 


*  In  a  recent  case,  a  man,  for  the  murder  of  whose  wife  three  young 
negroes  were  hanged,  confessed  on  his  deathbed  that  he  had  murdered 
the  woman  himself. 


TREATMENT   OF    SEXUAL    VICE   AND    CRIME     425 

in  hand.  I  have  elsewhere  discussed  more  in  detail  the  question 
of  identification  under  strong  emotional  excitement. 

The  prevention  or  amelioration  of  the  outrages  from  which 
the  South  is  suffering  will  never  be  accomplished  until  the  whites 
drop  the  double  standard  of  morals  that  ever  looms  up  like  a 
giant  monster,  just  behind  the  race  problem,  which  implies  that 
a  white  woman's  virtue  is  a  sacred  thing,  but  that  a  negress  is 
incapable  of  virtuous  sentiment,  or,  at  least,  has  none  that  a 
white  man  is  bound  to  respect.  Example  means  much,  espe- 
cially to  the  primitive  types  of  humanity.  Again,  if  the  negro 
has  a  low  standard  of  virtue  set  for  him,  what  reward  can  he 
expect  from  moral  conduct — simply  the  privilege  of  not  being 
shot,  hanged,  or  cremated  alive?  Brand  a  man  as  a  thief,  and 
he  "  might  as  well  have  the  game  as  the  name."  He  has  no 
incentive  to  uprightness  and  honesty. 

Admitting  that  the  capacity  for  moral  development  and 
altruistic  perception  is  primarily  low  in  the  negro,  it  is  still  only 
fair  to  ask,  "  Is  the  negro  in  his  native  state  essentially  immoral, 
according  to  his  lights,  and  if  not,  are  we  not  justified  in 
assuming  that  his  immorality  in  civilized  communities  is  due  in 
part  to  his  ignorant  attempt  to  adapt  himself  to  the  standards  of 
degraded  whites. 

Cherry,  in  his  lectures  on  Africa,  shows  pictures  of  prison 
stockades  in  African  villages  wherein  negroes  are  undergoing 
severe  punishment  for  rape,  adultery,  and  robbery,  so  the  native 
African  must  have  a  moral  code.  One  might  be  justified  in 
wondering  if  the  Dahomey  villagers  were  improved  by  the  atmos- 
phere of  civilization  enveloping  the  Midway  Plaisance  at  the 
Chicago  World's  Fair  ;  the  danse  du  ventre  was,  I  believe,  danced 
by  Caucasians  before  Caucasian  audiences. 

There  is  much  truth  in  Professor  Du  Bois's  remarks  anent  the 
incubus  that  crushed  the  spirit  of  the  black  race  at  the  close  of  the 
war.  "  The  negro's  burden  was  not  all  poverty  and  ignorance, 
for  there  was  the  red  stain  of  bastardy,  which  two  centuries  of 
defilement  of  negro  women  had  stamped  upon  his  race."  ^ 

•The  Souls  of  Black  Folk. 


426  THE   DISEASES   OF   SOCIETY 

The  negro  standard  of  sexual  morality  may  never  be  as  high 
as  that  of  the  whites  in  general,  but  it  is  even  now  quite  as  high 
as  that  of  the  white  who  cohabits  with  negresses.  Let  the  South 
begin  the  work  of  moral  training  of  the  blacks  by  setting  the 
ban  of  disapproval  upon  whites  who  sustain  sexual  relations 
with  them.  Miscegenation  is  a  crime  in  many  States,  in  but  one 
of  which  is  fornication  with  negroes  legislated  against.  What 
gross  inconsistency!  If  moral  sexual  relations  between  white 
and  black  are  stamped  as  a  crime,  what  should  be  done  with 
those  who  sustain  immoral  relations?  If  the  States,  both  North- 
ern and  Southern,  that  legislate  against  miscegenation  would 
be  fair  and  consistent,  they  must  place  a  heavy  penalty  upon 
illicit  cohabitation  between  the  races.  This  has  not  been  done 
save  in  Alabama;  so  far  as  I  am  aware.  The  white  father  of  an 
illegitimate  mulatto  child  should  be  made  to  pay  dearly  for  the 
luxury.  The  same  law  should  be  applied  to  whites  and  blacks. 
The  white  should  bear  the  principal  odium,  and  even  greater 
penalties,  because  of  the  greater  intelligence  he  is  supposed  to 
have  and  his  more  powerful  influence  upon  society's  morals. 
As  for  the  white  woman  who  voluntarily  cohabits  with  a  negro, 
she  should  be  made  an  example  of  that  would  permanently 
lighten  the  complexion  of  her  amorous  inclinations. 

The  sexual  education  of  youth  is  faulty  everywhere,  but  in 
addition  to  faulty  sexual  education  in  general,  the  Southern 
white  boy  has  a  special  dinger  confronting  him, — the  tempta- 
tion afforded  him  by  great  facilities  for  association  with  ne- 
gresses, and  in  some  quarters  an  atmosphere  of  social  tolerance 
of  any  indiscretions  he  may  commit  in  that  direction.  Any  sys- 
tem of  moral  training  of  the  black  that  does  not  comprehend  the 
correction  of  sexual  depravity  in  the  white  must,  of  necessity, 
be  a  failure. 

Right  thinking  and  right  acting  revolve  around  self-respect. 
The  negro  should  be  taught  self -respect.  To  deny  him  the 
quality  of  virtue,  to  refuse  to  acknowledge  it  as  even  a  possible 
attribute  of  his  race,  is  not  the  correct  way  to  go  about  it. 


CHAPTER   XI 

GENIUS    AND   DEGENERACY 

General  Considerations. — The  relation  of  genius  to  de- 
generacy has  been  of  late  years  the  subject  of  considerable 
controversy.  Believing,  as  I  do,  in  the  correctness  of  the  view 
that  genius  is  abnormal,  and  both  a  product  and  a  cause  of  de- 
generacy, and,  further,  that  it  is  correlated  with  other  phenomena 
of  degeneracy  that  are  generally  recognized  as  social  diseases,  its 
discussion  is  in  place  in  this  volume. 

The  impression  has  prevailed  among  the  laity  and  the  more 
narrow  of  the  scientific  opponents  of  the  genius-degeneracy 
theory  that  it  was  primarily  intended  to  discount  and  discredit 
genius.  This  idea  is  fallacious ;  the  liberal  scientific  tendency  is 
rather  to  discount  the  failings  of  genius  and  explain  them  on 
logical  grounds.  The  man  who  says  of  the  genius,  "  He  is  a 
great  man,  only  he  drinks ;"  or,  "  His  morals  are  thus  and  so," 
simply  demonstrates  his  own  lack  of  reasoning  faculty.  It  was 
said  of  Hartley  Coleridge,  "  He  writes  like  an  angel,  and  drinks 
like  a  fish."    Why  the  qualification? 

The  value  of  the  genius  to  the  world  is  not  to  be  gauged  by 
his  moral  irregularities  or  erratic  qualities  of  mind,  but  by  the 
worth  of  the  products  of  his  brain.  The  mental  and  moral  de- 
fects and  physical  degeneracy  of  genius  are  the  price  the  world 
must  pay  for  its  contributions.  They  are  also  the  price  that  the 
genius  himself  must  pay  for  that  which  does  not  always  benefit 
its  possessor.  The  world  usually  gets  much  the  better  of  the 
bargain,  and  yet,  even  from  this  stand-point,  the  value  of  the 
genius  has  been  overrated.  The  stability  and  prosperity  of 
society  is  not  dependent  upon  genius  in  the  strict  sense  of  the 
term,  but  upon  the  continuous  operation  of  the  normal,  well- 
balanced,  average  intellect.  Most  of  the  important  problems 
that  have  been  solved  by  genius  would  eventually  have  been 
worked  out  by  men  of  average  bram-capacity  under  the  whip 

427 


428  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

and  spur  of  human  necessities,  without  the  intervention  of 
meteoric  geniuses. 

The  same  thought  is  expressed  by  Ahson :  ^  "  How  much 
soever  we  may  ascribe,  and  sometimes  with  justice,  to  the  force 
and  ascendancy  of  individual  genius,  nothing  is  more  certain 
than  that,  in  the  general  case,  it  is  external  events  and  circum- 
stances which  give  a  certain  bent  to  human  speculation,  and  that 
the  most  original  thought  is  rarely  able  to  do  much  more  than 
anticipate  by  a  few  years  the  simultaneous  efforts  of  inferior 
intellects." 

Certain  it  is  that,  from  whatever  stand-point  genius  may  be 
viewed,  hard  work  combined  with  the  average  degree  of  intelli- 
gence outstrips  it  in  the  long-run — the  old  fable  of  the  tortoise 
and  the  hare.  If  most  of  us  waited  for  the  inspiration  of  genius, 
our  life's  end  night  would  overtake  us  ere  our  life  work  had  well 
begun.  Genius  oft  consumes  itself  in  its  own  fire,  and,  like  fire, 
ends  in  mere  smoke  and  ashes.  Like  the  flash-light,  the  genius 
shows  things  clearly  for  a  brief  moment  and  then  is  gone.  If  a 
picture  be  taken  on  the  sensitized  plate  of  history,  his  memory 
may  remain. 

In  letters  and  the  arts  especially,  the  value  to  humanity  of 
the  productions  of  genius  has  been  overestimated.  The  dogma 
of  infallibility  that  surrounds  with  a  halo  of  exaggerated  lumi- 
nosity the  heads  of  some  of  the  geniuses  of  the  world  has  well- 
nigh  made  them  demigods.  It  has  been  the  fashion  to  accept 
these  men  as  intellectual  meteors,  without  either  precedent  or 
successors.  Granting  this  to  be  possibly  true  of  some, — of 
whom  Shakespeare  is  the  type, — it  is  by  no  means  true  of  all. 
The  old  masters  are  sometimes  considered  as  without  peers 
because  of  our  inappreciation  of  men  of  the  present.  The  centre 
of  artistic  perception  of  the  latter-day  public  is  dominated  by  a 
presbyopic  vision  of  greatness — it  cannot  see  the  woods  for  the 
trees.  Again,  many  of  the  worshipped  productions  of  genius 
have  counted  for  but  little  in  human  progress.  Despite  the 
beauty  of  his  verse,  the  world  might  have  struggled  on  without 

*  Essay  on  Bossuet. 


GENIUS   AND    DEGENERACY  429 

the  neuropathic  Byron  and  his  pecuHar  moral  bent,  which  in- 
culcated the  doctrine  of  hating  your  neighbor  and  loving  your 
neighbor's  wife.  Other  geniuses  have  been  underrated.  The 
same  world  that  worships  at  the  feet  of  professional  slayers  of 
men, — great  military  geniuses, — and  has  made  demigods  of 
lewd  Boccaccio,  vulgar  old  Rabelais,  and  obscene  Dean  Swift,  has 
no  tablets  in  the  Hall  of  Fame  for  such  great  men  as  Crawford 
W.  Long  and  Guthrie,  the  co-discoverers  of  anesthesia,  or  that 
obscure  hero  doctor  of  the  American  backwoods,  Ephraim  Mc- 
Dowell, whose  pioneer  operation  of  ovariotomy  and  the  impetus 
it  gave  to  abdominal  surgery  has  saved  more  lives  than  Napoleon 
ever  destroyed.  Nelson,  dying  at  Trafalgar,  has  been  immor- 
talized because  he  reduced  killing  on  the  high  seas  to  a  science 
and,  when  his  end  came,  thanked  God  that  he  had  done  his  duty. 
Mention  in  the  medical  press  is  all  that  will  ever  be  meted  out 
to  brave  Mueller,  Sachs,  and  Barisch,  who  died  of  plague  con- 
tracted in  a  Vienna  laboratory  whilst  fighting  for  humanity,  or 
that  hero  of  Lisbon,  Professor  Pestana,  who,  as  he  lay  dying  of 
plague,  with  which  he  was  infected  while  studying  the  disease 
post  mortem,  gave  a  lecture  upon  his  own  case — knowing  full 
well  that  the  end  was  near — and  made  provision  for  an  autopsy 
on  himself  for  the  benefit  of  science. 

It  is  possible  that  the  rarity  of  genius  and  of  intrinsic  great- 
ness is  overestimated.  Accident  and  opportunity  have  had  much 
to  do  with  bringing  before  the  world  the  qualities  of  some  of  our 
greatest  personages.  An  illustrated  work  on  natural  history  fell 
into  the  hands  of  Cuvier,  and  one  of  the  greatest  of  naturalists 
had  his  eyes  opened  to  his  own  capacity  and  inclinations ;  the 
apple  fell  while  Newton  gazed  and  pondered,  and  the  law  of 
gravitation  was  established ;  the  great  cathedral  lamp  swung  to 
and  fro  before  Galileo,  and  a  new  system  of  cosmic  truth  was 
born ;  Schubert,  when  a  child  of  six,  was  taken  to  a  piano  ware- 
house and  a  tone  poet  discovered ;  Burns  was  brought  forth 
from  obscurity  by  Dr.  Blacklock,  who  chanced  to  see  a  copy  of 
his  first  modest  book  of  verse ;  Beethoven,  the  virtuoso,  went 
deaf  and  became  a  great  composer ;  Cromwell  was  prevented 
from  leaving  England  by  order  of  the  Crown,  and  this  made  the 


430  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

Commonwealth  possible ;  Jenny  Lind  sang  to  her  pet  kitten,  was 
overheard  by  an  appreciative  woman,  who  gave  her  the  oppor- 
tunity, and  became  a  human  nightingale ;  Christine  Nilsson 
sang  folk-songs  at  a  rural  fair,  and,  like  Jenny  Lind,  was  over- 
heard by  an  appreciative  one  who  made  her  glorious  career  pos- 
sible ;  Robert  Watt  beguiled  his  time  in  watching  a  dizzy  old 
teakettle,  and  lo !  a  Titan  force  sprang  into  being ;  the  soulful 
philosophy  and  spiritual  beauty  of  Omar  Khayyam  lay  obscured 
by  the  dust  and  rust  of  ages,  until  a  genius  of  modern  days, 
Fitzgerald,  brought  it  forth  arrayed  in  new  garb  for  the  delight 
of  thousands ;  Roosevelt  had  been  given  a  political  burial  by 
being  made  Vice-President — he  was  resurrected  by  a  lunatic's 
bullet;  and  there  are  other  instances  too  numerous  to  mention. 
Who  shall  say  that  there  are  not  hundreds  of  geniuses  who  await 
the  coming  of  accident  and  opportunity  to  reveal  themselves  to 
themselves  ?  Is  it  not  possible  that  many  a  genius  has  lived  his 
little  life  "  unhonored  and  unsung"  ? 

MacDonald  has  adopted  the  extreme  view  of  the  correlation 
of  genius  and  degeneracy.     He  says,^ — 

"  Human  beings  may  be  classified,  in  general,  into  normal  and  ab- 
normal. While  the  term  '  abnormal'  often  suggests  unethical  or  un- 
esthetic  characteristics,  it  is  not  here  so  employed.  Thus,  a  great 
reformer  and  a  great  criminal  are  both  abnormal  in  the  sense  of  di- 
verging greatly  from  the  average  or  normal  man.  The  principal  and 
extreme  forms  of  human  abnormality  are  insanity,  genius,  and  crime." 

Apropos  of  sentimental  opposition  to  the  view  of  genius  as 
abnormality,  MacDonald  further  remarks: 

"  From  the  natural  history  point  of  view,  man  should  be  studied 
as  we  study  all  species  below  him.  In  an  investigation,  therefore,  of 
insanity  and  genius,  we  must,  so  far  as  possible,  eliminate  all  those 
ethical  and  esthetic  ideas  that  we  have  been  accustomed  to  associate 
with  these  terms.  An  empirical  study  is  concerned  with  facts  rather 
than  with  sentiments,  emotions,  or  ideals  concerned  with  such  facts." 

It  should  be  remembered  that  while  genius  has  a  material 
foundation,  it  is  not  an  organic  entity,  but  a  quality  of  mind  of 

*  Abnormal  Man,  Arthur  MacDonald. 


GENIUS   AND    DEGENERACY  431 

very  complex  constitution.  This  fact  is  not  seemingly  always 
clear  to  writers  who  discuss  it ;  thus  the  author  of  a  recent 
popular  novel  says,  "  Genius  is  abnormal ;  therefore,  I  hold  that 
it  must  act  abnormally  at  some  period  of  its  career."  ^  Ob- 
viously, if  genius  is  a  quality  of  mind,  and  is  abnormal,  all  of  its 
manifestations  must  be  abnormal.  The  antisocial  acts  of  the 
genius,  however,  are  not  due  to  the  operations  of  genius,  but 
to  those  of  other  mental  qualities  with  which,  if  the  neuropathic 
or  degeneracy  theory  of  genius  be  correct,  genius  must  neces- 
sarily be  often  associated.  The  same  conduct  is  observed  in 
individuals  who  have  no  claim  to  genius. 

It  is  held  by  many  that  genius  is  a  mysterious  and  unac- 
countable property  of  mind,  a  sort  of  spiritual  essence  which, 
like  the  orthodox  soul,  is  a  phenomenon  that  stands  alone.  This 
view  is  a  natural  inheritance  from  the  old-time  school  of  psy- 
chologists, who  regarded  mind  as  a  mysterious,  ethereal  entity. 
Genius  is  mysterious  only  to  the  extent  that  mind  is  mysterious. 
If  mind  has  a  physical  basis,  as  is  now  generally  believed,  a 
physical  basis  must  also  be  assigned  to  genius.  This  much  must 
be  granted,  else  there  is  no  room  for  discussion  of  the  question 
of  the  normality  or  abnormality  of  genius. 

On  the  mystery  side,  Royse  *  says, — 

"  Genius,  like  the  air  we  breathe,  like  the  water  we  drink,  like  the 
light  that  vivifies  us,  is  a  compound,  not  one  of  whose  factors  discloses 
the  slightest  hint  of  the  glorious  product,  and  whose  laws  of  combination 
and  evolution  baffle,  and  must  ever  baffle,  the  keenest  scientific  inspection." 

The  acceptance  of  this  view  of  genius  should  be  impossible 
to  the  student  of  psychiatry,  and,  indeed,  to  any  one  familiar 
with  cerebral  localization  and  its  relation  to  psychology.  Taking 
Royse's  own  analogy  as  a  basis  for  the  consideration  of  genius, 
it  must  be  confessed  that,  while  the  precise  modus  of  the  com- 
bination of  elements  necessary  to  the  production  of  air,  water. 
and  light  is  unknown,  the  knowledge  of  these  "  compounds"  and 

*  The  Circle,  Katherine  Cecil  Thurston. 

*  Study  of  Genius,  N,  K.  Royse. 


432  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

their  nature  that  we  already  possess  is  far  too  material  to 
permit  us  to  regard  them  and  their  properties  as  altogether 
mysterious.  There  is  too  much  clinical  evidence  of  the  associa- 
tion of  peculiarities  of  brain-structure  with  certain  mental  attri- 
butes that  are  assigned  to  genius,  to  admit  of  the  relegation  of 
genius  to  the  limbo  of  mystery.  Mystery  is  the  burial-place  of 
research,  the  charnel-house  to  which  the  dead  hopes  of  scientific 
discovery  are  consigned.  Were  the  basis  of  genius  not  a  physi- 
cal one,  the  genius  would  rarely  rise  superior  to  adverse  environ- 
ment and  join  the  ranks  of  the  unforgotten,  even  under  the 
influence  of  favoring  accidents.  Rembrandt  would  have  re- 
mained a  miller,  Cervantes  a  soldier,  Faraday  a  blacksmith,  and 
the  great  Darwin  would  have  become  a  preacher,  had  their 
brains  been  differently  constructed.  We  may  not  gather  mental 
figs  of  cerebral  thistles,  even  though  figs  and  thistles  may  be 
gathered  from  the  same  brain. 

In  considering  the  attributes  of  genius,  the  mistake  is  often 
made  of  confounding  with  true  genius  not  only  manifestations 
of  talent,  but  also  the  superior  qualifications  that  may  be  de- 
veloped in  the  average  man  by  close  application  and  industry. 
The  talented  man  and  the  man  of  great  industry  may  far  out- 
strip his  fellows  in  the  battle  of  life,  without  presenting  the 
slightest  evidences  of  the  possession  of  a  creative  intellectual 
faculty.  In  science  and  the  arts,  especially,  men  and  women 
often  elevate  themselves  far  above  the  average  of  their  fellows 
without  the  slightest  legitimate  claim  to  genius.  A  profound 
knowledge  of  pathology  does  not  make  a  Virchow ;  a  great 
painter  is  not  necessarily  to  be  classed,  even  in  lesser  degree, 
with  Raphael  or  Michael  Angelo,  nor  a  highly  accomplished 
musician  with  Mozart  or  Beethoven. 

LOSS   OF   BRAIN    BALANCE    IN    THE   GENIUS 

The  view  that  genius  is  associated  with  degeneracy  is  founded 
upon  sound  physiologic  and  psychologic  principles.  Whether 
genius  results  from  degeneracy  or  degeneracy  from  genius,  or 
the  two  are  merely  coincidental,  is  another  question.  It  would 
seem  logical  to  infer  that  if  the  various  faculties  of  the  brain  are 


GENIUS   AND   DEGENERACY  433 

presided  over  by  different  areas  of  brain-cells,  the  capacities  of 
the  individual  must  vary  according  to  the  direction  in  which 
brain  development  preponderates.  Gall  and,  many  years  later,, 
Flechsig  ^  claimed  that  genius  was  not  due  to  degeneration,  but 
to  an  abnormally  great  development  of  a  circumscribed  brain 
area.  Granting  this  to  be  true,  it  must  be  shown  that  this  is  not 
associated  with  imperfect  development  of  other  areas.  The 
evidence  seems  to  show  that  genius  is  frequently  associated  with 
a  defective  development  and  aberrance  of  function  of  brain  areas 
other  than  those  involved  in  the  particular  manifestations  of 
genius  characterizing  the  given  subject.  Assuming  that  Gall 
and  Flechsig  were  correct  as  to  the  condition  of  the  brain  at 
birth,  the  law  of  physiologic  compensation  must  not  be  forgotten. 
The  excessive  use  of  one  extraordinary  brain  faculty — which  its 
mere  possession  begets — must,  of  necessity,  cause  a  loss  of 
nutritional  and  developmental  activity  of  brain  areas  other  than 
the  one  immediately  concerned.  The  law  of  brain  compensation 
should  be  especially  effective,  because  genius  usually  shows  itself 
in  childhood  or  youth, — i.e.,  during  the  period  of  brain  growth, 
when  the  brain  is  plastic  and  impressionable. 

It  will  be  seen,  then,  that  the  correlation  of  genius,  insanity, 
and  criminality  is  explainable  along  physiologic  lines.  In  the 
genius  the  brain-cell  groups  from  which  certain  faculties 
emanate  are  refined  and  developed  at  the  expense  of  other  cell 
groups.  The  will  and  the  sense  of  moral  responsibility  may,  and 
often  do,  suffer.  Apropos  of  this  loss  of  balance,  the  born 
criminal  may  be  the  victim  of  an  absolute  degeneracy  of  the 
higher  faculty  centres,  while  in  the  occasional  criminal  the  fore- 
brain  may  be  of  exceptionally  fine  organization  and  yet  his  facul- 
ties be  defective  in  the  direction  of  the  will,  moral  inhibitions, 
and  conception  of  the  rights  of  others, — i.e.,  the  altruistic  per- 
ception. In  many  instances  all  of  the  other  faculties  are  normal, 
but  selfishness  is  so  developed  that  the  mind  becomes  completely 
subservient  to  it.  This  is  the  explanation  of  some  cases  of  crim- 
inality in  persons  who,  although  they  have  led  exemplary  lives 

*  Gehirn  und  Seele,  Leipsic,  1896. 
28 


434  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

and  held  positions  of  responsibility  and  trust,  suddenly  startle 
their  friends  and  society  by  gigantic  thefts,  defalcations,  or 
moral  misconduct.  Selfishness  dominates  all  confirmed  crim- 
inals. Overpowering  selfishness  may  develop  as  a  suddenly 
acquired  appetite  for  drink,  or  an  all-absorbing  passion  for  some 
particular  person  of  the  opposite  sex.  Selfishness  and  egotism 
are  characteristics  common  to  the  insane,  the  criminal  and  some 
types  of  genius.  The  complaint  of  a  lack  of  appreciation  and  the 
peculiar  habits  of  some  geniuses  are  as  truly  manifestations  of 
morbid  self-consciousness  as  folic  de  grandeur  and  delusions  of 
persecution  in  the  insane,  or  a  lack  of  altruistic  sentiments  in  the 
criminal. 

The  "  dead  beatism"  of  some  geniuses  is  on  a  par  with  the 
dishonesty  of  the  thief.  Each  feels  that  the  world  owes  him  a 
living,  and  each  has  his  own  way  of  getting  it.  The  jealousy 
of  one  genius  of  another's  work  is  a  primitive  impulse  that  is 
distinctly  atavistic,  and  suggestive  of  the  dog  that  snarls  when- 
ever his  master  caresses  another  animal.  In  general,  it  may  be 
accepted  that  the  anatomic  and  physiologic  degeneracy  and 
attendant  instability  of  nervous  equilibrium  that  are  such  fre- 
quent concomitants  of  criminality  are  often  found  in  the  genius. 
The  criminal  may  exhibit  what  may  be  termed  a  genius  for 
crime.     He  may  be  a  bright  particular  star  among  his  fellows. 

The  diversion  of  the  unstable  nervous  energy  underlying 
what  the  world  terms  genius  into  channels  altruistic  in  object, 
or,  at  least,  in  result,  or  into  certain  lines  of  art  or  literature,  is 
perhaps  the  saving  grace  in  many  cases  of  degeneracy  which, 
born  under  fortuitous  circumstances,  might  have  resulted  in  a 
criminal  career.  The  diversion  of  the  thoughts  and  actions  of  the 
genius  into  legitimate  channels  is  an  inhibitor  of,  and  substitute 
for,  impulses  and  actions  adverse  to  the  best  interests  of  society. 
The  genius  is  ever  out  of  harmony  with  his  environment,  so  far 
as  social  conventionalities  are  concerned.  Like  the  criminal,  he 
is  often  distinctly  antisocial.  What  we  condone  in  him  as  idio- 
syncrasies sometimes  represent  what  would  be  considered  typi- 
cally criminal  impulses  and  actions  were  not  the  product  of  his 
energies  of  value  or  interest  to  the  race.    The  criminal  steals ; 


GENIUS   AND    DEGENERACY  435 

the  genius  often  borrows,  when  he  knows  full  well  he  can  never 
repay ;  although,  on  the  other  hand,  he  may  starve  in  a  garret 
rather  than  do  either. 

The  abnormal  emotional  irritability  of  incipient  insanity  is 
precisely  similar  to  the  psychopathic  state  of  many  geniuses, 
and  of  many  border-line  cases  of  individuals  who  show  oddities 
of  thought,  feeling,  and  conduct  that  are  out  of  harmony  with 
the  carriage  of  the  majority  of  men.  These  border-line  cases 
are  classed  as  of  the  insane  temperament  by  Maudsley,  and  as 
mattoids  by  Lombroso.  They  show  originality  and  eccentricity, 
but  in  useless  and  often  merely  offensive  ways.  A  certain  de- 
gree of  genius  may  be  evinced,  but  the  critical  spirit  which,  com- 
bined with  originality,  makes  for  genius  is  lacking.  Where  the 
insane  temperament  exists  in  one  member  of  a  family,  other 
members  may  show  true  genius  or  true  insanity. 

It  is  a  safe  proposition  that  the  nervous  integrity  of  a  given 
subject  is  often  inversely  to  the  degree  of  refinement  of  organiza- 
tion. If  this  be  admitted,  it  is  obvious  that  neuro-psychic  de- 
generacy must  be  frequent  in  geniuses,  whose  nervous  systems 
are,  to  say  the  least,  highly  and  delicately  organized.  That  their 
centres  of  ideation  are  in  general  hyperesthetic  can  hardly  be 
disputed  on  rational  grounds.  Clouston  holds  that  there  are 
numerous  examples  of  persons  of  insane  temperament,  whose 
qualities  range  from  those  of  the  inspired  idiot  to  those  of  the 
inspired  genius.  He  claims  that  Goldsmith,  Shelley,  Lamb, 
Cowper,  De  Quincey,  Turner,  and  Tasso  were  of  insane  tem- 
perament." 

It  is  noticeable  that  psychic  hyperesthesia  not  infrequently 
exists  in  geniuses  whose  general  sensibility  is  relatively  obtuse. 
This  may  manifest  itself  in  extreme  sensitiveness  to  criticism, 
favorable  or  otherwise.  Lombroso ''  cites  some  curious  facts 
bearing  upon  this  point.  Thus  D'AIembert  and  Menage  were 
insensible  to  the  pain  of  a  surgical  operation,  but  wept  at  cen- 
sorious criticism.    Luce  de  Lancival  smiled  while  his  legs  were 


•  Lectures  on  Insanity,  T.  S.  Clouston. 
'  L'Homme  de  Genie. 


436  THE   DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

being  amputated,  but  could  not  endure  Geoffrey's  criticisms. 
The  same  author  also  notes  the  responsiveness  of  certain 
geniuses  to  psychic  impressions  when  their  various  faculties  are 
practically  annulled.  The  great  Linne,  insensible  from  apoplexy, 
was  aroused  when  placed  near  his  herbarium.  Lagny,  the 
mathematician,  while  comatose,  was  asked  the  square  of  twelve, 
and  made  immediate  answer.  Psychic  automatism  at  once 
suggests  itself  in  connection  with  such  phenomena. 

Psychic  hyperesthesia  is  an  important  factor  in  the  alcoholic 
and  narcotic  inebriety  and  immorality  so  often  observed  in 
geniuses.  Narcotic  drugs  are  especially  dangerous  to  such 
subjects,  although  under  their  influence  many  geniuses  have 
evolved  their  best  work.  De  Quincey,  Poe,  and  the  younger 
Coleridge  are  illustrious  examples. 

THE    MODESTY   OF   GENIUS 

The  question  of  the  relative  modesty  and  self-assertiveness 
of  genius  has  been  a  matter  of  some  dispute.  By  some  it  is  held 
that  genius  is  always  modest ;  by  others  that  it  is  always  self- 
appreciative.  The  latter  seems  much  the  more  logical  assump- 
tion. Hegel  believed  in  his  own  divinity ;  his  lectures  were 
marvels  of  egotism.  Heine  wrote :  "  Man  is  the  vainest  of 
animals,  and  poets  are  the  vainest  of  men."  Malherbe  thought 
his  own  verses  "  the  most  beautiful  in  the  world."  Balzac  spoke 
for  the  vanity  of  genius  when  he  said  that  there  were  only  three 
writers  of  French, — Hugo,  Gautier,  and  Balzac.  And  so  did 
Michael  Angelo,  when  at  eighty  he  gazed  upon  the  Coliseum  and 
said,  "  I  yet  go  to  school  that  I  may  learn  something."  Men- 
tally, this  modest  declaration  was  probably  qualified  by,  "  I, 
even  I." 

The  alleged  modesty  of  genius  is  frequently  due  to  the  morbid 
self-consciousness  that  follows  an  effort  that  is  unfruitful  of 
appreciation.  Morbid  self-depreciation  is  in  itself  a  species  of 
vanity,  and  often  a  sort  of  rebellion  against  a  world  that  will  not 
listen  to  the  whisperings  of  the  genius  which  the  claimant  to 
recognition  feels  that  he  possesses.  The  morbid  sensibility  of 
the  genius  impels  him  to  say  within  himself,  "  Well,  if  you 


GENIUS   AND   DEGENERACY  437 

don't  see  how  great  I  am,  I'll  punish  you  by  not  calhng  your 
attention  to  it."  In  some  instances  the  modesty  of  certain  men 
recognized  as  geniuses  is  pure  affectation ;  in  others  it  is  due  to 
an  inabihty  to  back  up  by  vigorous  "  bluff"  the  recognition  that 
the  world  often  grants  to  counterfeit  genius. 

However  conscious  the  genius  may  be  of  his  rare  qualities 
during  his  hours  of  production,  a  lack  of  appreciation  of  his 
work  is  likely  to  make  him  bitter,  or  moody,  depressed,  taciturn, 
and  lacking  in  self-assertion.  The  higher  his  opinion  of  his 
own  work,  the  more  marked  these  symptoms  of  psychic  hyper- 
esthesia are  likely  to  be. 

Many  of  the  neuropathic  phenomena  of  the  genius  are  pro- 
duced, or  at  least  exaggerated,  by  the  enormous  expenditure  of 
nervous  force  incidental  to  his  mental  operations.  Lombroso  * 
says,  "  It  is  permitted  to  no  one  to  expend  more  than  a  certain 
quantity  of  force  without  being  severely  punished  from  the  other 
side.  This  is  why  men  of  genius  are  so  unequal  in  their  pro- 
ductions. Melancholy,  depression,  egotism,  are  the  price  of 
sublime  gifts  of  intellect." 

In  general,  it  is  safe  to  say  that,  during  his  periods  of  ex- 
altation at  least,  a  man  of  great  creative  intellectual  power  is 
reflexly  fully  conscious  of  its  possession.  This  is  probably  as 
true  as  that  a  man  of  great  physical  vigor  is  reflexly  conscious 
of  his  strength  and  agility.  Egotism  aside,  contact  with  minds 
of  inferior  calibre  makes  the  genius  conscious  of  his  own 
superiority  of  intellect.  His  critical  faculty  alone  is  sufficient 
to  enable  him  to  make  more  or  less  just  and  accurate  com- 
parisons. 

In  some  instances  the  alleged  modesty  of  genius  is  due  to  the 
unfavorable  comparison  by  the  genius  of  the  work  that  he  has 
accomplished  with  that  which  he  is  ambitious  to  accomplish,  and 
of  which  he  feels  himself  capable. 

In  much  of  the  evidence  that  has  been  adduced  in  i)roof 
of  the  self-consciousness  and  modesty  of  genius,  egotism  is 
a   dominant   feature.     In    the    journal    of    Ernest    Renan.'    for 


•  Op.  cit.  *  Souvenirs  de  Jeunesse. 


438  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

example,  which  is  devoted  to  self -depreciation,  the  personal  pro- 
noun is  used  nineteen  times  in  a  single  page.  The  mere  writing 
of  an  autobiography  puts  the  brand  of  egotism  on  genius. 

In  general,  the  value  of  genius  is  enhanced  rather  than  the 
contrary  by  its  egotism.  The  high  estimate  that  the  true  genius 
puts  upon  himself  insures  a  better  quality  of  product  than  would 
a  lack  of  confidence  in  his  own  powers.  Nothing  worthy  of  the 
name  was  ever  accomplished  by  men  who  lacked  confidence  in 
their  own  strength,  knowledge,  or  skill.  However  slow  the 
genius  may  be  in  claiming  recognition,  his  best  work  is  not  done 
in  his  moments  of  depression  and  self-depreciation.  Faint  heart 
in  the  garret  never  won  fair  lady  Fame  in  the  open  day. 

Dr.  Samuel  Johnson  said,^°  "  All  the  complaints  made  of 
the  world  are  unjust.  I  never  knew  a  man  of  merit  neglected; 
it  was  generally  his  own  fault  if  he  failed  of  success."  This  is 
not  wholly  true,  but  in  the  main  applies.  It  is  noteworthy,  how- 
ever, that  had  Johnson  died  at  middle  age  he  would  never  have 
been  heard  of.  . 

THE   CRITICAL   FACULTY   OF   GENIUS 

Regarding  the  critical  faculty  of  genius  in  general,  and  of 
Shakespeare  in  particular,  Macaulay  says,^^ — 

"  It  seems  that  the  creative  faculty  and  the  critical  faculty  cannot 
exist  together  in  their  highest  perfection.  When  Shakespeare  abandons 
himself  to  the  impulse  of  his  imagination  his  compositions  are  not  only 
the  sweetest  but  also  the  most  faultless  that  the  world  has  even  seen ; 
but  as  soon  as  his  critical  powers  come  into  play  he  sinks  to  the  level 
of  Cowley,  or,  rather,  he  does  ill  what  Cowley  does  well.  The  only 
thing  wanting  to  make  his  work  perfect  was  that  he  should  never  have 
troubled  himself  whether  it  was  good  or  not." 

Macaulay  evidently  did  not  recognize  the  fact  that  Shake- 
speare's work  was  such  as  demanded  the  highest  critical  faculty. 
This  faculty,  primarily  instinctive,  had  become  almost  as 
unerring  as  it  was  automatic.    He  fell  down,  if  at  all,  only  when 

"Hill's  Boswell,  Vol.  iv.  "Essays. 


GENIUS   AND   DEGENERACY  439 

he  lost  confidence  in  himself  and  began  to  quibble  with  that 
which  was  already  well-nigh  beyond  criticism.  Shakespeare's 
work  had  behind  it  not  only  genius,  but  education  in  the  broadest 
sense  of  the  term.  With  the  acquirement  of  that  education  came 
perfect  development  of  the  critical  faculty  that  was  his  birth- 
right. So  much  of  Shakespeare's  wonderful  work  demands 
more  than  inspiration  for  its  production  that  it  would  seem  im- 
possible that  the  man  to  whom  the  work  is  accredited  could  ever 
have  evolved  it.  It  is  just  this  that  gives  color  to  Donnelly's 
Baconian  theory  of  the  authorship  of  the  immortal  plays  and 
sonnets.  Shakespeare,  or  whoever  wrote  the  works  accredited  to 
him,  had  the  largest  vocabulary  of  any  known  writer.  The 
genius  behind  the  discriminating  selection  and  intelligent  use  of 
a  vocabulary  of  some  fifteen  thousand  words  was  individual 
and  wonderful.  The  knowledge  of  these  words  did  not  come  by 
inspiration,  however,  but  by  long  and  arduous  work.  The  same 
may  be  said  of  the  profound  knowledge  of  human  nature,  lan- 
guages, politics,  sociology,  literature,  and  the  sciences  displayed 
in  the  plays  and  sonnets. 

THE   HEREDITY  OF  GENIUS 

The  question  of  the  heredity  of  genius  has  attracted  much 
attention.  The  consensus  of  opinion  probably  is  that  it  is  not 
hereditary,  but  an  isolated  phenomenon — a  flash  of  intellectual 
lightning  in  the  sombre  sky  of  family  mediocrity.  Ribot  is  a 
champion  of  the  heredity  view  of  genius.^^  Galton  also  has 
undertaken  to  prove  that  genius  is  hereditary  by  citing  a  large 
number  of  instances  in  which  illustrious  men  have  had  geniuses 
among  their  kin-folk.^^  Discounting  his  deductions  by  consider- 
ing the  obvious  fallacy  contained  in  his  enumeration  of  some  men 
whose  eminence  by  no  means  proves  their  genius,  there  still 
remains  much  that  is  suggestive.  It  remains,  however,  to  be 
proved  that  there  is  necessarily  any  hereditary  relation  between 
the  genius  and  his  genius-gifted  ancestors  and  immediate  rela- 


"  Heredite  Psychologique. 

**  Hereditary  Genius,  Francis  Galton. 


440  THE   DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

tives.  This  is  obviously  difficult  of  proof  in  the  face  of  the  fact 
that  geniuses  often  adorn  mediocre  family  trees.  On  the  other 
hand,  where  the  parents  are  mediocre,  it  is  not  always  possible 
to  show  that  remote  heredity  may  not  be  potent.  The  given  indi- 
vidual is  the  focal  point  of  multitudinous  blood-streams  of  vary- 
ing quality.  Either  vice  or  virtue  may  influence  one  or  more 
of  these  streams,  and  show  at  the  point  of  confluence. 

Whether  or  not  genius  per  se  is  hereditary  is  of  little  moment 
if  we  accept  the  degeneracy  view  of  genius  and  consider  it  an 
abnormality.  This  being  established,  it  would  only  be  necessary 
to  say  that  the  neuropathic  constitution  that  underlies  all  in- 
tellectual aberrations — i.e.,  losses  of  cerebral  balance,  such  as  in- 
sanity in  its  various  phases,  dipsomania,  criminality,  and  genius 
— is  hereditary.  These  aberrations  of  nervous  constitution  may 
appear  in  a  given  generation  as  any  one  or  all  of  a  number  of 
abnormal  phenomena,  either  in  different  individuals  of  the  same 
family  or  in  a  single  individual  in  a  given  family.  These  phe- 
nomena sometimes  seem  to  act  vicariously  with  each  other. 
The  genius  may  be  descended  from  an  epileptic,  a  drunkard,  or 
an  unequivocally  insane  parent ;  the  family  may  present  among 
the  children  a  single  genius  with  epileptic,  insane,  or  dipso- 
maniacal  brothers  and  sisters ;  the  genius  who  has  children  may 
have  a  genius  among  them,  although  he  is  more  likely  to  have 
progeny  who  present  all  of  the  degeneracy  of  the  parent  without 
his  genius.  The  less  intellectual  the  family  stock,  the  more  ab- 
normal the  genius, — i.e.,  the  farther  removed  he  is  from  the 
family  brain-type. 

Were  it  possible  to  follow  out  the  blood-lines  of  descent  of 
any  given  individual,  his  personal  attributes  would  quite  likely 
be  found  to  have  a  logical  explanation  somewhere  in  his  heredity. 
The  self-made  man  is  an  egotistic  theory ;  as  a  condition  I  do 
not  believe  he  exists.  The  so-called  self-made  man  has  perhaps 
made  the  best  possible  use  of  the  materials  heredity  has  given 
him,  but  he  is  in  no  wise  to  be  accredited  with  those  materials. 
That  men  are  often  the  architects  of  their  own  fortunes  does  not 
discount  biologic  law.  Accidents  and  adversities  of  environ- 
ment may  prevent  the  man  of  genius  or  of  "  hustling"  ability 


GENIUS   AND    DEGENERACY  441 

from  accomplishing  his  aims  in  hfe  without  discredit  to  the  ma- 
terials with  which  nature  endowed  him  at  birth.  The  quality 
of  mind,  like  that  of  plants,  depends  upon  the  quality  of  the 
seed,  the  soil  in  which  it  is  sown,  the  character  of  the  influences 
brought  to  bear  upon  it  during  growth,  and  the  inherent  re- 
sistancy  with  which  it  meets  adverse  conditions.  Let  not  the 
self-made  man  arrogate  unto  himself  much  of  credit  for  his  suc- 
cess. Behind  him  stands  some  sturdy  old  ancestor,  or  perchance 
one  who  had  just  the  peculiarity  of  mental  constitution  which, 
passed  on  to  his  descendants,  should  naturally  be  expected  to 
crop  out  as  genius  or  exceptional  talent  of  one  kind  or  another. 
Again,  there  may  be  only  an  hypertrophy  of  the  centre  of  ac- 
quisitiveness, and  its  hereditary  product  only  a  successful  finan- 
cier. To  lower  his  conceit  still  further,  let  him  add  to  the  accident 
of  birth  the  possibility  that  many  are  called  by  heredity,  although 
few  are  chosen  by  environment, — which  means  opportunity  in 
its  broadest  sense. 

Royse "  denies  the  heredity  of  genius,  and  in  the  next 
breath  claims  that  race  dominates  not  only  genius,  but  the 
quality  of  genius.  If  the  sap  of  the  larger  family  tree,  race,  has 
anything  to  do  with  the  production  and  variation  of  genius,  why 
may  not  that  of  the  smaller  tree,  the  family  ?  It  is  certain  that 
the  effect  of  family  blood  in  modifying  the  character  of  a  given 
type  is,  on  the  average,  proportionate  to  the  nearness  of  the 
relation. 

To  claim  that  genius  is  not  hereditary  is  to  accept  Huxley's 
"  sport"  theory  in  toto.  If  it  be  not  a  lusus  naturce,  there  is  no 
reason  why  genius — or,  rather,  the  peculiarity  of  nervous  con- 
stitution upon  which  it  depends ;  for  genius,  as  already  re- 
marked, is  not  an  organic  entity — may  not  be  hereditary. 
Whether  genius  be  considered  normal  or  abnormal,  this  is  a 
logical  assumption.  Heredity  is,  of  course,  limited  in  its  scope 
by  the  short  lives  and  relative  infertility  of  geniuses. 

The  difficulty  of  proving  that  genius  is  hereditary  revolves 
largely  around  the  fact  that  by  far  the  great  majority  of  geniuses 

"  Op.  cit. 


442  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

have  had  an  immediate  parentage  which  has  shown  by  its  achieve- 
ments no  evidence  of  talent  of  any  kind.  Royse  accepts  this  as 
disproving  the  hereditary  view  of  genius.  In  addition  to  the 
fallacy  of  thus  arbitrarily  viewing  the  heredity  of  genius  from 
a  point  too  near  the  genius's  own  generation,  there  is  here  an- 
other source  of  error  in  the  acceptance  of  the  parents'  station 
and  occupation  in  life  as  evidence  for  or  against  the  possession  of 
genius  by  them.  Among  many  other  illustrations  of  the  non- 
heredity  of  genius,  Royse  mentions  Boccaccio,  who  was  the  son 
of  a  Florentine  tradesman  and  was  himself  for  a  time  a  mer- 
chant's clerk.  It  needs  little  critical  acumen  to  see  the  weak- 
ness of  such  evidence.  Boccaccio's  father's  occupation  proves 
nothing  as  to  that  worthy  man's  mentality,  nor  does  it  disprove 
the  possibility  that  even  he  might  have  been  a  genius  who  had 
never  been  called  to  his  true  sphere.  According  to  Royse's  rea- 
soning, Boccaccio's  own  early  occupation  of  merchant's  clerk 
should  be  taken  as  conclusive  evidence  that  he  himself  was  not  a 
genius,  despite  his  after-prowess  in  the  field  of  quasi-genteel 
literary  smut. 

In  deciding  whether  the  genius  of  a  given  individual  is 
directly  hereditary,  its  quality  and  kind  should  be  compared  with 
that  of  the  genius  of  his  gifted  progenitor.  The  artistic  genius 
of  the  son  of  a  musical  genius  can  hardly  be  termed  hereditary, 
in  the  sense  in  which  the  term  is  ordinarily  used.  The  music- 
centres  of  the  brain,  and  the  centres  of  perception  of  form,  color, 
and  perspective  are  not  the  same.  The  musical  and  artistic 
faculties  are,  however,  correlated  by  the  emotion-centre.  Without 
a  highly  developed  faculty  of  emotion,  art,  poesy,  and  music  are 
impossible,  or  at  least  largely  mechanical  and  technical.  When 
emotional  hyperesthesia  does  not  underlie  their  production,  they 
are  devoid  of  soul ;  the  fire  of  true  genius  does  not  illumine 
them.  Where  the  genius  attributes  of  father  and  son  are  di- 
verse, then  the  direct  heredity  of  genius  is  not  established.  The 
most  that  can  be  said  here  is  that  the  inequality  and  instability 
of  nervous  structure  that  underlie  genius  are  transmitted  from 
father  to  son.  It  may  also  be  said  that  in  transmission  they  are 
likely  to  be  augmented,  and  the  physique  of  the  second  genera- 


GENIUS   AND    DEGENERACY  443 

tion  become  so  degenerate  that  the  family  end  is  brought  peril- 
ously near.  Neither  family  nor  talent  extinction  necessarily  fol- 
lows, however.  Charles  Dickens  left  a  son  who  is  a  worthy  and 
able  member  of  the  bar  ;  a  son  of  Tennyson  is  a  colonial  governor 
of  some  ability ;  Dumas,  the  younger,  was  worthy  of  his  sire,  as 
was  Hartley  Coleridge,  inebriate  though  he  was ;  a  son  of  Oliver 
Wendell  Holmes  is  a  talented  member  of  the  Supreme  Bench  of 
the  United  States.  None  of  these  deserves  to  be  called  a  genius 
save  Coleridge,  but  they  are  all  exceptions  to  the  rule  of  accumu- 
lation of  degeneracy  in  families.  Coleridge  was  neither  better 
nor  worse  than  his  sire. 

There  are  several  points  that  should  be  remembered  in  esti- 
mating the  potency  of  the  heredity  of  genius, — viz. : 

1.  The  genius  of  the  son  is  often  obscured  by  his  father's 
reputation. 

2.  The  son  may,  on  the  other  hand,  shine  by  light  reflected 
from  his  father's  fame,  the  glamour  of  the  name  investing  him 
with  an  unmerited  halo  of  genius. 

3.  The  genius  of  the  father  is  sometimes  of  the  "  fake" 
variety,  and  his  children  simply  breed  true  to  the  overrated  in- 
ferior parent  stock  and  encounter  no  opportunity  for  imposing 
on  the  credulity  of  the  public. 

Some  of  the  evidence  adduced  in  favor  of  the  heredity  of 
genius  is  as  fallaciously  weak  as  is  much  of  that  which  has 
been  arrayed  against  it ;  thus  Royse,^*^  a  non-believer  in  genius 
heredity,  says,  in  a  spirit  of  fairness, — 

"  James  Watt's  early  love  for  tools  and  his  mechanical  dexterity 
may  be  readily  traced  to  his  father,  a  carpenter  and  builder.  The 
father  of  Palissy,  a  noted  Huguenot  potter  and  naturalist,  was  a  tile- 
maker  and  worked  in  clay.  Edmund  Burke's  father  was  an  attorney 
of  some  prominence  in  Dublin.  Alexander's  father  was  Philip,  inventor 
of  the  Macedonian  phalanx.  Both  the  father  and  brother  of  Hannibal 
were  noted  generals.  Solon  was  descended  from  Codrus.  The  father 
of  Pericles,  Xanthippus,  was  a  successful  Greek  general,  and  his  mother 
was  a  niece  of  Clisthenes,  an  Athenian  statesman.  Charlemagne  was 
grandson  of  the  illustrious  Charles  Martel.    Not  only  were  Bach's  father 

"  Op.  cit. 


444  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

and  brothers  musicians,  but  his  ancestors  for  generations  back  were  of 
the  same  turn  of  mind.  Mozart's  father  was  a  professor  of  music. 
Weber's  father  was  a  man  of  musical  taste  and  of  some  skill  in  that 
same  direction.  No  little  part  of  Mendelssohn's  peculiar  bent  and  all 
the  merit  of  his  earlier  training  must  be  accredited  to  his  highly  cultured 
mother.  Raphael's  father  was  a  painter  of  considerable  reputation  in 
his  day.  John  Wesley's  ancestors  for  four  generations  back  had  been 
scholarly  churchmen.  Van  Dyck,  the  master  of  portrait-painters,  was 
particularly  fortunate  in  his  parents,  his  father  being  a  painter  on  glass 
and  his  mother  a  painter  of  landscapes,  from  whom  also  he  received 
instruction.  The  father  of  Bichat,  the  skilled  anatomist  and  physician, 
was  himself  a  physician  of  no  mean  repute." 

Critical  analysis  of  the  foregoing  illustrations  reflects  some- 
what upon  the  judiciousness  of  their  selection. 

The  fact  that  Watt's  father  was  a  carpenter  and  builder  may 
have  developed  mechanical  tastes  in  his  son,  but  it  is  hardly  prob- 
able that  it  had  much  to  do  with  his  genius. 

It  requires  no  genius  to  be  a  "  tilemaker  and  a  worker  in 
clay."  Palissy's  father  may  not  have  ranked  higher  as  an  artist 
than  does  the  modern  moulder  and  baker  of  bricks  and  tile. 

The  fact  that  Burke's  father  was  "  an  attorney  of  some 
prominence"  does  not  prove  that  he  had  the  slightest  genius  to 
transmit  to  the  future  great  statesman.  Galton,  the  most  strenu- 
ous champion  of  the  heredity  of  genius,  ranks  judges  and  advo- 
cates very  low  in  the  scale  of  genius.^"  Talford,  the  eminent 
British  barrister  and  critic,  says,  "  The  majority  of  successful 
advocates  are  not  men  of  genius." 

That  men  of  genius  are  found  at  the  bar  and  on  the  bench 
cannot  be  denied,  but  the  fact  none  the  less  remains  that  men  of 
highly  developed  imaginative  and  creative  faculty  are  not  likely 
to  be  tempted  to  enter  the  profession  of  law,  and,  where  they  do 
enter  it,  it  is  not  the  profession  itself  that  brings  their  genius  to 
the  fore,  save  in  the  cases  of  exceptionally  brilliant  orators,  for 
whom  the  listening  judge  and,  more  especially,  the  representa- 
tives of  the  press,  are  an  inspiration.  Such  genius  as  the  pro- 
fession of  law  itself  develops  is  often  the  power  behind  the  throne 

"Op.  cit. 


GENIUS   AND   DEGENERACY  445 

of  the  great  jury  lawyer.  The  court  orator  frequently  expounds 
legal  lore  that  has  been  formulated  by  the  plodding  office  part- 
ner, who,  while  he  may  participate  in  the  fees,  never  gets  his 
share  of  the  glory  of  a  well-plead  cause. 

Philip  of  Macedon  was,  it  is  true,  a  successful  general  and 
ruler,  but  this  does  not  necessarily  imply  that  he  was  a  genius. 
His  force  of  character  and  quality  of  leadership  and  his  reduction 
of  the  art  of  war  to  the  Macedonian  phalanx  are  by  no  means 
indubitable  evidence  of  true  genius.  With  Philip,  war  was  a 
trade,  and  he  reduced  it  to  systematic  business  principles.  His 
drunkenness  lends  more  color  to  the  heredity  explanation  of 
Alexander's  genius  than  does  his  success  as  a  general. 

Granted  that  the  father  and  brothers  of  Hannibal  were  noted 
generals,  wherein  is  their  genius  proved?  If  success  and  fame 
in  war  are  necessarily  manifestations  of  genius,  then  genius  is 
indeed  a  common  attribute.  Among  our  celebrated  American 
generals,  success  has  ever  depended  more  upon  luck  and  keep- 
ing on  the  right  side  of  War  Department  politics  than  upon 
genius.  The  notable  exceptions  shine  because  they  are  excep- 
tions. McClellan  was  a  great  soldier,  but  the  jealousy  of  Rose- 
crans  and  the  enmity  of  Stanton  eclipsed  his  star.  Custer  was  a 
successful  general,  yet  he  died  as  might  a  blundering  fool  who 
had  never  fought  a  battle.  Roosevelt,  talented  though  he  is,  has 
no  military  genius,  and  his  Rough  Riders  narrowly  escaped  an- 
nihilation in  one  of  his  battles,  yet  he  is  called  the  "  Hero  of  San 
Juan."  Recent  history  in  this  country  shows  very  plainly  that 
the  fame  of  some  of  our  military  and  naval  heroes  depends  upon 
a  mixture  of  luck,  politics,  press  popularity,  and  a  grade  of  intel- 
ligence which  can  be  distorted  into  genius  only  on  the  ground 
that  a  lack  of  common  sense  proves  genius.  It  will  be  admitted 
that  the  genius  often  lacks  common  sense,  but  this  does  not 
prove  that  every  pair  of  long  ears  that  blotches  the  pages  of  his- 
tory is  attached  to  a  wonderful  cranium  replete  with  gray  matter 
and  multitudinous  convolutions,  nor  that  the  bray  of  the  popular 
idol  is  always  attuned  to  the  whisperings  of  genius.  The  c^ov- 
ernment  of  the  United  States  has  had  considerable  trouble  with 
some  of  the  heroes  who  have  been  created  by  political  preference 


446  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

and  stamped  upon  their  brows  with  "  genius" — in  their  own 
handwriting — and  endorsed  by  their  party.  They  have  brayed 
raucously,  long  and  loudly,  in  sundry  inappropriate  places  and  at 
moments  the  most  inopportune. 

It  may  be  true  that  Bach's  father  and  brothers  were  musi- 
cians, and  that  his  ancestors  for  many  generations  were  of  the 
same  turn  of  mind,  but  what  claims  had  they  to  genius  ?  A  hun- 
dred generations  of  musicians  might  not  produce  a  single  musical 
genius,  although,  it  must  be  confessed,  he  would  be  more  likely 
to  crop  out  in  such  a  family,  sooner  or  later,  than  in  a  non-musical 
family.  Mozart's  father,  who  was  a  "  professor  of  music ;" 
Weber's  father,  who  had  "  musical  tastes,"  and  Mendelssohn's 
"  highly  cultivated"  mother  may  or  may  not  have  had  something 
to  do  with  the  genius  of  their  progeny.  There  are  thousands  of 
families  equally  gifted  in  which  no  geniuses  arise. 

Van  Dyck's  parents  may  possibly  have  had  genius,  which 
was  transmitted  to  him,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  they  may  have 
transmitted  to  and  cultivated  in  him  merely  an  esthetic  sense, 
which  even  though  they  had  never  possessed  the  slightest  claim 
to  genius,  would  naturally  have  resulted  in  the  acquirement  of 
artistic  taste  and  technique  in  their  son. 

Bichat's  father  might  have  been  a  physician  of  great  celebrity 
without  possessing  a  spark  of  genius.  The  popular  medical 
idol  is  sometimes  an  arrant  humbug.  As  the  world  progresses, 
and  specialism  grows  more  and  more  rampant,  celebrity  and 
genius  in  medicine  will  diverge  farther  and  farther. 

Lombroso  ^^  cites,  among  others,  as  illustrations  of  the  direct 
heredity  of  genius,  Bach  and  Adams  among  musicians ;  Van  der 
Welde,  Van  Eyck,  Murillo,  Correggio,  and  Tintoretto  among 
painters ;  Tasso,  Ariosto,  Aristophanes,  Corneille,  Racine,  Sopho- 
cles, and  Coleridge  among  poets ;  Dumas,  the  Cheniers,  and  the 
Daudets  among  prose  writers ;  the  Plinies,  Darwin,  De  Can- 
dolle.  Hooker,  Herschel,  and  St.  Hilaire  among  natural  scien- 
tists ;    the  Scaligers,  Humboldt,   Schlegel,  and  Grimm  among 


"  Op.  cit. 


GENIUS    AND    DEGENERACY  447 

philosophers ;    and   the    Pitts,   Walpoles,    Peels,   and   Disraelis 
among  statesmen. 

THE   PRECOCITY    OF   GENIUS 

The  typic  criminal  and  the  genius  are  alike  in  that  they  are 
born,  not  made.  Like  genius,  an  incapacity  for  appreciating  the 
rights  of  others,  or  even  absolute  moral  obliquity,  often  appears 
in  the  victim  of  criminality  at  a  very  early  age.  Exceptions  there 
are  in  plenty,  but  these  instances  are  sometimes  more  apparent 
than  real.  A  careful  study  of  their  childhood  will  either  reveal 
criminal  tendencies,  or  else  the  case  resolves  itself  into  a  lack  of 
exposure  to  influences  tending  towards  crime  until  later  in  life. 
Necessity  and  temptation  may  not  enter  into  the  life  of  the 
individual  until  he  is  well  along  in  adult  years.  The  sporadic 
or  occasional  criminal  is,  therefore,  not  always  really  "  sporadic." 

That  any  loss  of  mental  balance  distinguishing  the  subject 
from  the  normal  average — whether  creditably  or  the  opposite — 
is  likely  to  show  itself  precociously  is  shown  not  only  in  the 
histories  of  geniuses  and  the  insane,  but  also  by  the  records  of 
our  police  courts  and  reformatories  and  the  histories  of  a  large 
proportion  of  women  who  enter  upon  lives  of  shame. 

Precocity  has  often  been  noted  as  suggestive  of  both  insanity 
and  genius.  Royse  ^^  and  Lombroso,^®  in  particular,  have  called 
attention  to  the  precocity  of  genius.  This  precocity  is  sufficient 
alone  to  suggest  a  primary  structural  brain  difference  from  the 
normal  average  of  humanity,  and  indicates  abnormality  if  it 
indicates  anything  whatever.  The  old  adage,  "  A  genius  at  five, 
a  lunatic  at  fifteen,"  has  had  only  too  much  clinical  support. 

Some  of  the  greatest  characters  of  history  showed  their 
genius  phenomenally  early.  Thus  the  immortal  Dante  wrote 
wonderful  verses  at  the  age  of  nine ;  Torquato  Tasso  and  the 
famous  Mirabeau  were  versifying  at  ten ;  before  the  average 
age  of  puberty,  Voltaire  and  the  great  Auguste  Comte  were 
already  philosophers,  and  Pope.  Fenelon,  Goethe,  Mctor  Hugo. 
Handel,  Beethoven,  Mozart,  and  Raphael  had  shown  evidences 

**  Op.  cit  "  L'Homme   de   Genie. 


448  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

of  the  genius  that  was  to  give  them  undying  fame.  This  Hst 
might  be  enlarged  to  the  inclusion  of  the  majority  of  geniuses. 

As  establishing  the  precocity  of  genius,  Sully's  -"  tables  are 
conclusive.  They  show  that  of  three  hundred  geniuses,  five- 
sixths  showed  extraordinary  promise  before  twenty  years  of  age, 
three-fourths  of  them  produced  characteristic  work  before  thirty, 
and  eight-tenths  had  achieved  distinction  before  forty.  Ob- 
scurity, poverty,  and  lack  of  opportunity  probably  explain  the 
tardy  manifestations  of  genius  in  most  of  the  remainder.  As 
already  indicated,  where  the  greatest  work  of  the  genius  is  done 
comparatively  late  in  life,  a  late  development  of  genius  should 
not  be  inferred.  Late  manifestation  by  no  means  implies  late 
development. 

The  assertion  often  made  that  "  genius  is  the  capacity  for 
hard  work"  is  fallacious,  if  there  is  anything  in  the  theory  that 
genius  is  correlated  with  and  oftentimes  dependent  upon  de- 
generacy. The  attribute  of  genius  without  ambition  and  a  certain 
degree  of  industry  is,  however,  almost  worthless.  Fortunately, 
genius  usually  impels  ambition.  Genius  that  feeds  upon  itself  in 
a  garret  is  rarely  recognized.  But  while  genius  may  not  assert 
itself,  it  usually  does  so,  and  at  least  tries  to  compel  recognition. 
The  individual  who  is  best  capacitated  for  hard  work  often  has 
not  the  ambition  to  impel  him  to  it,  nor  any  brain  qualities  merit- 
ing distinction.  There  must  be  some  brain  quality  that  raises  the 
individual  out  of  the  ruts,  else  he  can  neither  possess  nor  demon- 
strate genius. 

It  is  admitted  that  the  methods  of  genius  vary  from  slow, 
laborious  work  to  a  rapidity  of  expression  and  action  which  is 
truly  phenomenal.  The  creative  faculty  is,  however,  the  same 
in  both — the  difference  lies  in  the  facility  of  thought  expression 
and  objective  demonstration.  The  primary  concept  may  come 
like  a  flash  of  lightning,  although  its  formulation  for  the  under- 
standing of  others  is  slow  and  difficult. 

The  instances  of  great  men  who  were  considered  slow  of  wit 
in  childhood  are  probably  explicable  on  the  ground  that  the 

"James  Sully,  Nineteenth  Century,  quoted  by  Royse. 


GENIUS   AND    DEGENERACY  449 

influences  which  were  eventually  to  show  their  abnormal  devel- 
opment in  one  or  the  other  direction  had  not  yet  been  brought  to 
bear  upon  them.  Whatever  the  explanation,  a  number  of  men 
and  women  of  genius  have  demonstrated  their  claim  to  distinc- 
tion comparatively  late  in  life.  Cervantes  was  nearly  sixty  years 
of  age  before  he  knocked  at  the  door  of  immortality  with  Don 
Quixote  in  his  hand.  Bunyan  was  forty  and  Virgil  thirty  before 
producing  anything  of  value,  ^schylus,  Euripides,  Chaucer, 
Wordsworth,  Cooper,  Fielding,  Sterne,  and  Charlotte  Bronte 
were  well  along  towards  middle  life  before  producing  anything 
of  lasting  worth.    As  Royse  ^^  says, — 

"  Had  Shakespeare  died  at  thirty,  Addison,  Dryden,  and  Gibbon  at 
forty,  Hallam  at  forty-one,  Scott  and  Hume  at  forty-three,  Butler,  Rich- 
ardson, and  Cowper  at  fifty,  Grote  at  fifty-two,  Locke  and  Defoe  at 
fifty-eight,  and  Milton  at  sixty,  it  is  doubtful  if  English  literature  would 
have  favored  them  with  even  the  briefest  mention.  Bach  did  not  com- 
pose until  after  forty;  Haydn  did  not  develop  his  peculiar  merits  as  a 
composer  until  near  sixty;  Sir  Christopher  Wren  did  not  display  his 
qualities  as  an  architect  until  about  thirty;  Gutenberg  was  forty  when 
he  invented  printing;  Columbus  was  fifty-six  when  he  planted  the 
Spanish  flag  on  San  Salvador ;  Franklin  was  forty  when  he  began  his 
investigations  in  electricity,  and  Stephenson  was  thirty-two  when  he  con- 
structed the  first  steam  engine ;  Harvey  published  his  great  discovery  at 
fifty,  and  Darwin  his  *  Descent  of  Man'  at  the  same  age." 

The  mistake  is  often  made  of  designating  the  first  work  of 
genius  that  attracts  attention  as  its  first  manifestation,  or  even 
as  the  birth  of  genius  in  a  given  individual.  It  often  happens 
that  the  work  that  appeals  to  the  public  is  really  inferior  to  earlier 
productions  that  have  been  allowed  to  pass  unnoticed.  Public 
recogTiition  marks  the  most  important  historic  epoch  in  the  life 
of  the  genius,  and  the  work  that  wins  it  often  unjustly  over- 
shadows all  that  has  gone  before.  This  is  an  all-important  source 
of  error  in  the  chronology  of  the  lives  of  great  men  and  women. 

EDUCATION    AND   GENIUS 

The  relation  of  education  to  genius  is  peculiar.  The  old- 
fashioned  methods  of  education  had  much  to  do  with  keeping 

"  Op.  cit. 
29 


450  THE   DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

the  peculiar  bent  of  some  geniuses  in  the  background,  and 
modern  methods  are  even  worse,  for  their  apphcation  is  more 
general  and  the  genius  has  less  chance  of  escaping  the  school- 
men's toils  than  of  old.  One  may  imagine  the  result  of  attempt- 
ing to  teach  the  dead  languages  or  mathematics  to  embryo 
Raphaels,  Linnes,  or  Scotts.  Nothing  could  be  more  fatal  in  its 
effects  upon  some  imaginative  or  creative  minds.  A  slight  ac- 
quaintance with  brain  physiology  should  be  sufficient  to  teach 
this  point  to  our  educators,  but  they  seem  to  learn  slowly,  and 
discriminative  selection  and  election  in  education  is  as  yet  a  terra 
incognita  to  the  pedagogue.  The  average  man  may  be  taught 
to  think  in  conventional  channels  without  lessening,  but  rather 
increasing,  his  value  to  the  world,  but  the  ordinary  methods  of 
pedagogy  are  a  ball  and  chain  for  true  genius.  The  pedagogic 
ignorance  which  was  responsible  for  the  early  dulness  of  New- 
ton, Balzac, — who  was  expelled  from  school  for  stupidity, — 
Verdi,  Rossini,  Wagner,  Pestalozzi,  and  John  Howard  differed 
from  that  of  to-day  only  in  that  they  were  able  to  break  away 
from  it.  The  system  is  so  perfect  nowadays  that  escape  is  well- 
nigh  impossible.  The  genius  stands  a  better  chance  than  ever  of 
having  his  brain  crammed  and  stiffened  with  dead  lumber  from 
other  men's  garrets. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  greatest  works  of  imagination  have 
been  the  creations  of  uneducated  men.  This  is  true  or  untrue, 
according  to  the  kind  of  product  and  the  standard  that  is  adopted 
as  the  test  of  education.  If  so-called  "  mental  discipline"  along 
conventional  lines  is  accepted  as  the  standard,  the  assertion  is 
true ;  the  beaten  path  is  vicious  training  for  original  minds  ;  the 
college  is  the  grave  of  genius.  In  most  instances,  however,  the 
imaginative  genius  has  had  an  education  of  a  certain  kind — be 
has  grasped  eagerly  those  things  that  satisfied  his  hunger  for 
knowledge,  and  his  education  has  been  a  matter  of  intellectn-^l 
selection  and  discrimination.  Without  education  of  any  kind 
many  geniuses  would  never  have  been  discovered.  Shakespeare's 
genius  without  his  broad  and  liberal  education  would  have  availed 
him  but  little,  and  the  world  less.  Many  of  the  ignorant  inspired 
lunatics  of  the  world  might  have  been  intellectual  wonders  under 


GENIUS   AND   DEGENERACY  451 

proper  training.  Mental  training  of  the  proper,  not  too  con- 
ventional, kind  is  more  necessary  to  the  literary  genius  than  to 
the  musical  or  artistic  phenomenon.  The  genius  of  the  latter- 
day  scientist  and  mechanician  must  also  be  discounted,  because 
in  his  work  he,  of  necessity,  takes  advantage  of  whatever  has 
gone  before.  As  society  advances  and  knowledge  accumulates, 
the  various  fields  are  covered  more  and  more  thoroughly,  and 
the  incentives  and  opportunities  for  the  display  of  genius  grow 
more  and  more  limited.  There  is  also  less  encouragement  for 
genius  than  in  former  days — although  it  has  ever  battled  against 
odds, — because  there  are  now  so  many  competitors  who  are  re- 
garded as  beacon-lights  in  the  various  fields  of  human  progress, 
who  jealously  mould  public  opinion  to  suit  their  own  selfish  ends. 

Experimentation  alone  has  sometimes  demonstrated  the  apti- 
tude of  genius  for  certain  life-work.  Euripides,  the  athlete,  be- 
came a  painter,  and  afterwards  studied  rhetoric  and  philosophy 
before  he  discovered — Euripides.  Had  it  not  been  for  Professor 
Henslow,  of  Cambridge,  who  took  the  youth  with  him  on  his 
natural  history  jaunts  into  the  woods  and  fields,  Darwin,  the 
prospective  student  of  theology,  might  never  have  discovered 
Darwin,  the  great  naturalist — despite  an  heredity  and  conditions 
the  most  favorable,  for  the  boy  was  born  of  scientific  and  artistic 
stock,  that  was  weilthy  enough  to  afford  its  progeny  opportuni- 
ties. Beaumarchais,  the  maker  of  watches,  became  a  great 
dramatist;  Hans  Christian  Anderson  spun  and  wove  the  warp 
and  woof  of  his  wondrous  fairy-tales  whilst  cobbling  his  neigh- 
bors' shoes ;  Moliere,  "  King  of  the  Comedy  Drama,"  waded 
through  law  and  theology,  but  was  a  quantity  too  uncertain  for 
either,  and,  joining  a  band  of  vagabondish  players,  brushed  the 
scales  from  his  eyes,  peered  into  his  mental  futurity  and  saw — 
Moliere.  Alas!  how  many  geniuses  cease  experimenting  be- 
fore the  final  stage,  and  remain  for  life  enveloped  in  the  cocoon 
of  unfavorable  environment. 

The  bent  of  genius  is  controlled  to  a  degree  by  the  age  in 
which  he  lives.    Macaulay  says :  ^^ 


Essay  on  Dryden. 


452  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

"  In  fact,  it  is  the  age  that  forms  the  man,  not  the  man  that  forms 
the  age.  Great  minds  do,  indeed,  react  upon  the  society  which  has 
made  them  what  they  are;  but  they  only  pay  with  interest  what  they 
have  received.  We  extol  Bacon  and  sneer  at  St.  Thomas  Aquinas ;  but 
if  their  situations  had  been  changed,  Bacon  might  have  been  the  Angeli- 
cal Doctor,  the  most  subtle  Aristotelian  of  the  schools,  while  the  Do- 
minican might  have  led  out  the  sciences  from  their  house  of  bondage.  If 
Luther  had  been  born  in  the  tenth  century,  he  would  have  effected  no 
reformation." 

Briefly,  genius  and  society  act  and  react  upon  each  other. 
The  seed  of  genius  unacted  upon  by  the  other  atoms  of  the  social 
fabric  to  which  its  possessor  belongs  would  lie  dormant.  It  is 
the  law  of  supply  and  demand,  the  exigencies  of  society,  that 
furnishes  nutrition  for  the  genius  plant  and  shapes,  and  moulds, 
and  colors  its  flower.  The  genius,  solitary  and  alone  in  the  desert 
from  birth,  would  build  no  locomotives,  paint  no  grand  pictures, 
write  no  poems,  nor  construct  systems  of  philosophy. 

GENIUS    IN    MILITARISM    AND   CRIME 

The  criminal  tendencies  of  some  geniuses  have  found  a  vent 
in  certain  directions  that  have  given  them  undying  fame.  The 
genius  of  murder  and  the  genius  of  militarism  are  often  the 
same, — a  homicidal  mania.  The  glory  of  war  has  often  been  a 
vicarious  outlet  for  the  degeneracy  of  the  man  whose  innate  ten- 
dencies were  murder  and  robbery.  Some  of  the  world's  greatest 
heroes  were  built  upon  this  plan.  The  all-conquering  Caesar  was 
an  epileptic,  of  feeble  constitution,  and  suflFered  from  migraine. 
Alexander  the  Great  was  the  victim  of  some  neurosis  that  caused 
wry-neck.  He  died  young,  at  thirty-two,  with  some  disease 
resembling  delirium  tremens.  Tiberius  was  a  typic  degenerate.^^ 
Cromwell  was  a  sickly  neuropath  who  was  a  confirmed  hypo- 
chondriac, his  morbidity  often  approximating  melancholia.  All 
his  life  he  was  dominated  by  a  vision  in  which  a  spectral  woman 
of  gigantic  stature  foretold  his  coming  greatness, — a  phantasmic 
reflection  of  his  own  hypertrophic  ego.  The  great  Duke  of 
Marlborough  was  of  a  distinctly  degenerate  constitution.     Na- 


*•  Plutarch's  Lives. 


GENIUS    AND    DEGENERACY  453 

poleon,  the  greatest  assassin  and  marauder  of  the  recent  past,  was 
an  epileptic  who  suffered  from  hallucinations  that  he  saw  on 
all  great  occasions,  urging  him  on  to  certain  success.  Fortunate, 
indeed,  was  it  for  the  world  that  Napoleon  finally  paid  the 
penalty  of  his  epilepsy,  and  ran  his  head  into  a  trap.  There  was 
more  than  fate  in  the  spectacle  of  the  lonely  exile  of  Elba ;  there 
was  more  than  accident  in  the  cancer  that  gnawed  its  way  into  his 
vitals  and  cut  him  down  in  his  prime.  Had  Napoleon  not  been  a 
physical  degenerate,  there  would  have  been  no  "  Little  Corporal." 
Had  there  been  a  healthy  Little  Corporal,  who  shall  say  to  what 
extremes  his  murderous  career  would  have  gone?  It  was  not 
the  minions  of  the  Czar,  nor  yet  the  Russian  winter,  that  caused 
the  flight  from  Moscow;  it  was  not  Wellington  that  made 
Waterloo  possible ;  it  was  remorseless,  ever-present,  ever-pur- 
suing disease. 

Some  of  the  greatest  crimes  of  history  were  the  products  of 
indubitable  genius.  The  genius  of  finance  has  ever  acted  vicari- 
ously with  the  genius  of  robbery.  The  South  Sea  Bubble  and 
the  Panama  Canal  scheme,  that  well-nigh  ruined  France,  have 
their  counterparts  in  the  nefarious  operations  of  financial  geniuses 
whose  focal  point  is  Wall  Street  or  the  wheat  pit,  and  whose 
chief  victims  are  average  men,  or  men  whose  intellectual  quali- 
fications are  not  tinged  with  conservatism.  It  requires  genius 
to  carry  on  dishonest  gigantic  stock-jobbing  and  mine-selling 
operations,  or  a  corner  in  wheat  that  shall  rob  the  public  of 
millions. 

Great  crimes  demand  mental  activity,  fertility  of  resource, 
intrepidity,  cleverness  of  conception,  fixity  of  purpose,  and  per- 
haps great  mechanical  skill,  associated  with  a  profound  knowl- 
edge of  human  nature.  That  eminent  Parisienne,  Madame 
Humbert,  who  conducted  the  most  colossal  and  intricate  swind- 
ling scheme  that  Europe  has  ever  experienced  since  the  Panama 
Canal  was  exploited,  is  a  genius,  the  apotheosis  of  cleverness, 
and  a  marvel  of  industry.  The  history  of  her  crime  reads  like  a 
fairy-tale.  One  feels  almost  inclined  to  the  view  that  the  genius 
she  exhibited  deserved  the  compensation  it  received.  Certain  it 
is  that  had  it  been  diverted  into  legitimate  channels  the  reward 


454  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

might  have  been  equally  great.  The  fact  that  her  victims  were 
professionals  in  law  and  finance  is  in  itself  suggestive  that  she 
had  a  master  intellect. 

The  great  De  Lesseps  was  a  genius ;  was  he  or  was  he  not  a 
criminal  ?  Is  it  possible  that  this  man,  whose  intellect  dominated 
the  engineering  world,  was  not  in  touch  with  the  nefarious  opera- 
tions of  the  men  who  manipulated  the  Canal  scheme  ?  The  steal- 
ing was  carried  on  so  openly  at  the  Panama  end  of  their  opera- 
tions that  no  one  of  intelligence  who  was  on  the  ground  should 
have  been  deceived.  And  yet  De  Lesseps  may  have  been  merely 
a  dupe. 

Some  of  the  greatest  criminals  of  latter-day  civilization  oc- 
cupy very  exalted  positions.  The  laws  sometimes  appear  to 
have  been  made  for  the  government  of  the  masses,  not  for  the 
plutocracy.  Corporations  may  swindle  and  browbeat  the  public 
at  will.  Individuals  must  pay  the  penalty  of  stealing.  At  the 
head  of  some  mighty  corporations  stands  the  genius  of  finance 
and  organization,  who  may,  with  impunity,  filch  from  the  public 
purse  if  he  so  elects. 

From  whatever  stand-point  genius  may  be  viewed,  its  corre- 
lation with  crime  is  noticeable.  Genius  has  been  said  to  be  the 
capacity  for  hard  work;  and  even  in  the  light  of  this  interpre- 
tation the  criminal  genius  is  not  always  found  wanting.  The 
man  who,  with  a  pen,  draws  a  fac-simile  of  a  greenback  of  large 
denomination,  which  is  worth  its  face  value  as  a  work  of  art  and 
requires  some  weeks  in  its  production,  is  not  to  be  held  lightly 
upon  either  the  work  or  innate  capacity  standard  of  judgment, 
although  from  the  stand-point  of  creative  capacity  he  may  be 
said  to  have  talent  rather  than  genius.  So  far  as  pride  in  his 
work  is  concerned,  the  high-grade  counterfeiter  need  not  blush 
before  the  world's  artistic  geniuses.  That  the  counterfeiter  has 
often  an  artistic  temperament,  or  even  a  genius  for  art,  diverted 
into  wrong  channels,  is  shown  by  the  frequency  with  which  men 
of  the  highest  artistic  ability,  who,  indeed,  are  often  successful 
professionals  in  legitimate  art.  become  counterfeiters. 

Such  geniuses  as  have  been  noted  among  criminals  have  ex- 
ceptionally belonged  to  the  typic  criminal  class,  but  rather  to  the 


GENIUS   AND   DEGENERACY  455 

class  of  occasionals.  In  most  instances  where  men  of  culture, 
refinement,  and  supreme  intellect  have  committed  infractions  of 
the  law  and  suffered  the  penalties  therefor,  the  crime  has  been 
huge  swindling  schemes,  embezzlement,  or,  more  often  still, 
murder.  The  original  edition  of  "  Biographia  Brittanica"  con- 
tained the  names  of  such  celebrities  as  Bonner,  Cuff,  and  Aram, 
who,  notwithstanding  their  having  been  selected  as  worthy  of  a 
position  in  Britain's  galaxy  of  famous  men,  were  each  hanged 
for  murder. 

The  most  famous  of  all  criminal  geniuses,  and  the  murderer 
to  whom  literature  has  devoted  the  most  attention,  was  Eugene 
Aram.  Bulwer  Lytton  immortalized  him  in  prose,  and  Words- 
worth in  verse.  Many  writers  have  argued  pro  and  con  as  to 
his  guilt,  which,  however,  was  indubitably  established.  Despite 
neglect  of  his  early  education,  Aram,  when  the  world  of  letters 
was  finally  revealed  to  him,  exhibited  undoubted  genius.  He 
early  mastered  mathematics  and  acquired  much  learning  in 
poetry,  history,  and  antiquities.  Noting  his  deficiency  in  the 
classic  languages,  he  within  one  year  acquired  a  phenomenal 
knowledge  of  Latin  and  Greek.  He  afterwards  mastered  He- 
brew, Chaldaic,  Ancient  Celtic,  Arabic,  French  and  all  there  was 
to  be  known  of  heraldry.  He  taught  at  different  times  in  these 
various  fields  of  learning." 

THE    NEURO-PSYCHIC   DEFECTS    OF   GENIUS 

The  relation  of  genius  to  neuro-psychic  degeneracy,  and  espe- 
cially to  insanity,  was  recognized  by  Shakespeare  in  the  lines : 

"  The  lunatic,  the  lover,  and  the  poet 
Are  of  imagination  all  compact." 

Dryden  wrote : 

"  Great  wit  to  madness  is  allied, 
And  thin  partitions  do  their  bounds  divide." 

In  more  modern  times  we  have  the  authority  of  Lord  Bea- 
consfield,  who  described  mental  aberrations  in  his  own  person, 
and  of  Huxley,  who  says : 

"  Book  of  Remarkable  Trials,  etc.,  Captain  L.  Benson,  London. 


456  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

"  Genius  is  an  innate  capacity  of  any  kind  above  the  average  mental 
level.  From  a  biologic  point  of  view,  a  genius  among  men  is  in 
the  same  position  as  a  sport — or  freak  of  nature — among  animals  and 
plants. 

"  Genius  is  the  correlative  of  variation  of  physical  type.  On  the 
same  general  grounds  that  a  strongly  abnormal  variety  is  not  in  har- 
mony with  the  average  standard,  a  large  proportion  of  geniuses  are  likely 
to  come  to  grief,  both  physically  and  socially,  and  their  intensity  of  feel- 
ing is  likely  to  run  into  insanity." 

The  suspicion  that  genius  is  an  expensive  gift  from  nature  to 
man  is  very  ancient.  Cicero  described  the  furor  poeticiis.  Dry- 
den  was  but  an  imitator  of  Horace  -^  and  Democritus,  who  con- 
sidered insanity  necessary  to  the  poetic  fire.  Aristotle  -*  seemed 
to  consider  cerebral  hyperemia  a  cause  of  poetic  genius  and  of 
prophecy.  Plato  '^  said,  "  Delirium  is  by  no  means  evil,  but 
when  it  comes  by  the  gift  of  the  Gods,  a  very  great  benefit. 
When  the  Gods  afilict  men  with  epidemics,  a  sacred  gift  inspires 
some  men  with  a  remedy  for  these.  The  muse  excites  some  souls 
to  delirium,  to  glorify  heroes  with  poetry  or  instruct  future 
generations."  Seneca  believed  that  genius  without  a  certain 
amount  of  insanity  could  not  exist.  Burton  ^*  expounds  a  similar 
doctrine.  Diderot,-®  Pascal,  Voltaire,  and  Lamartine  believed 
genius  to  be  a  mental  disease. 

Plato  may  indeed  be  said  to  have  reasoned  well  upon  the 
subject  of  genius,  for  certain  of  its  manifestations  are  incom- 
patible with  normal  mind.  Whatever  the  state  of  mind  may  be 
during  the  interim,  it  is  doubtful  if  any  poetry  worthy  of  lasting 
fame,  or  any  romance  of  high  class,  was  ever  written  while  the 
author  was  in  a  normal  state  of  brain.  There  must,  of  necessity, 
exist  a  loss  of  balance  in  the  direction  of  the  emotional  centres  at 
the  time  of  production.  It  is  probable,  also,  that  no  really  ex- 
cellent emotional  acting  was  eVer  the  product  of  a  normal  mind. 
Witness  what  one  of  our  greatest  emotional  actresses  says  of 
herself : 


'  Ars  Poetica.  "  De  Pronost.  "  Phaedo. 

'  Anatomy  of  Melancholy.  **  Dictionaire  Encyclopedique. 


GENIUS    AND    DEGENERACY  457 

"  Analyze  me,  study  me,  when  I'm  up  there  on  the  stage.  My  nerves, 
my  poor,  tortured  nerves,  vibrate  horribly,  my  blood  boils,  my  heart 
palpitates  quickly.  Study  me,  analyze  me,  and  you'll  see  that  I'm  un- 
conscious of  my  presence  on  the  stage;  that  I  am  not  myself,  but  Magda 
or  Caesarine,  Marguerite  or  Mirandolina,  Cyprienne  or  Fedora.  I  laugh 
with  them,  weep  with  them,  and  rave,  struggle,  and  betray  with  them. 
I  give  myself  away;  I  refuse  myself;  I  live,  love,  and  die.  It  is  the 
poison  of  Fedora  that  is  mine,  really  in  my  body.  It  is  genuine  con- 
sumption, the  ravaging,  terrible  consumption  which  chokes  me  in  the 
arms  of  Armand." 

I  submit  that  this  description  is  itself  the  product  of  psychic 
hyperesthesia,  and  also  that,  granting  that  the  tragedienne  was 
perfectly  normal  primarily,  she  could  not  long  remain  so  in  the 
face  of  the  severe  emotional  strain  to  which  by  her  own  testi- 
mony, she  is  daily  subjected. 

The  nervous  breaking  dow^n  of  so  many  histrionic  artists  has 
frequently  been  attributed  to  dissipation,  when  neuro-psychic 
degeneracy  was  the  cause  of  both  dissipation  and  breakdown. 

Moreau  holds  that  genius  is  the  highest  expression  of  in- 
tellectual activity,  and  due  to  abnormal  excitation  of  the  nervous 
system,  underlying  which  is  hereditary  defect  of  nervous  struc- 
ture.3» 

Men  of  science  have  been  noted  to  be  less  frequently  de- 
generate than  other  men  who  rise  above  their  fellows.  The  true 
genius  in  science,  however,  has  shown  a  fair  proportion  of  de- 
generacy in  himself  or  his  family,  as  elsewhere  remarked.  Great- 
ness in  science  does  not  necessarily  mean  genius.  The  true 
genius  of  science  is  like  his  brethren,  even  though  his  degeneracy 
shows  in  less  degree.  Inasmuch  as  science  is  not  an  imagina- 
tive field  of  human  endeavor,  it  is  obvious  that  the  more  de- 
generate types  of  genius  are  not  likely  to  be  attracted  by  it. 
While  the  great  tragedians,  poets,  and  romancists  are  much  the 
same  in  their  neuropathic  constitution,  most  of  the  great  scien- 
tists of  the  world — and  even  those  who  can  be  classed  as  possess- 
ing true  genius — have  differed  from  them  in  degree  of  neu- 
ropathy.   That  men  of  science  have  not  been  altogether  free  from 

••  Psychologic  Morbide. 


458  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

neuro-degenerative  taint  is  evidenced  to  Nisbet  ^^  by  the  neu- 
ropathy in  Darwin's  ancestry,  the  melanchoHa  of  GaHleo,  and 
the  stigmata  of  degeneracy  found  in  the  family  of  Robert  Watt. 
To  the  imaginative  facuhy  of  Lombroso  we  are  indebted  for  the 
description  of  Darwin's  physiognomy  as  "  cretin-Uke." 

It  must  be  remembered  that  neuropathy  in  the  scientist  is 
Hkely  to  be  acquired  by  overwork,  worry,  and  lack  of  compensa- 
tion with  its  attendant  privations,  and  hence  have  little  bearing 
upon  primary  degeneracy.  In  the  main,  the  statement  that  it  is 
the  genius  of  estheticism  or  emotion,  especially,  that  is  accom- 
panied by  unmistakable  signs  of  degeneration  is  probably  correct. 
Scientists  and  mechanicians,  while  often  the  victims  of  acquired 
nerve  disorder,  and  occasionally  the  subjects  of  primary  degen- 
eracy, are  relatively  free  from  the  latter. 

By  far  the  majority  of  the  geniuses  of  the  world,  both  past 
and  present,  all  classes  being  considered,  have  shown  a  for- 
midable train  of  physical  and  mental  evils.  Insanity,  ne'er-do- 
well-ism,  inebriety,  deformities,  and  nervous  diseases  in  him- 
self, his  ancestry,  and  posterity — when  he  has  had  any — have 
ever  been  the  fate  of  the  genius.  How  often  our  attention  is 
called  to  the  sad  truth  that  genius  perishes  in  its  own  day  and 
generation.  Posterity  may  dim,  but  rarely  does  it  add  to  its 
lustre.  The  physical  degeneracy  of  the  family  tree  of  the  gifted 
one  culminates  in  him  as  genius,  and  flares  up  with  dazzling 
brilliancy.  Fortunate  is  the  genius  who  does  not  himself  dim 
the  lustre  of  his  star  before  he  dies ;  exceptional,  indeed,  is  the 
genius  who  leaves  descendants.  It  has  been  truly  said  that, 
"  When  genius  comes  in  at  the  door,  health  flies  out  of  the 
window."  ^^  The  world's  geniuses  have,  in  the  main,  either  died 
childless  or  have  left  a  posterity  of  such  degenerate  physique  that 
after  a  generation  or  two  all  recollection  of  the  man  and  his 
family  has  been  lost.  Sex  indiflFerence,  congenital  or  acquired, 
and  procreative  incapacity  enter  into  consideration  here.  The 
slavery  that  genius  imposes  on  its  ambitious  possessor  leaves 
little  time,  nor  develops  much  inclination,  for  wife,  mistress,  or 


"  Insanity  of  Genius.  "  Nisbet,  op.  cit. 


GENIUS    AND   DEGENERACY  459 

family  ties.  When  time  permits  and  inclination  exists,  the  de- 
votions of  genius  at  the  shrine  of  Venus  are  likely  to  be  excessive 
and  unproductive.  The  more  fertile  and  the  harder  worked  the 
mind,  the  less  fertile  the  body.  Sexuality  in  the  genius  presents 
irritability,  rather  than  strength. 

Nordau's  views  of  degeneracy  attracted  wide-spread  atten- 
tion, and  while  his  work  expressed  extreme  views,  and  was 
received  with  hostility  by  hero-worshippers,  it  nevertheless  em- 
phasized the  degeneracy  side  of  genius  in  no  uncertain  tones. ^^ 
His  analysis  of  the  work  of  various  stars  in  the  firmament  of  art 
and  literature  was  merciless  and  exhaustive,  and,  overdrawn 
though  it  was,  carried  conviction  with  it.  But  stronger  than  the 
arguments  of  Nordau  are  the  family  and  personal  histories  of 
geniuses.  Stronger  than  all  is  the  fundamental  physiologic  law 
of  compensation  in  development. 

The  physical  deterioration  and  infertility  of  geniuses  are  both 
incidental,  the  result  of  a  loss  of  balance  between  the  intellectual 
and  lower  centres  of  the  brain, — i.e.,  between  the  frontal  lobes 
and  those  portions  of  the  brain  presiding  over  the  moral  facul- 
ties and  the  motor,  sensory,  sexual,  and  visceral  functions. 
Granting  that  the  latter  centres  may  be  degenerated  in  the  genius, 
— whether  primarily  or  secondarily, — his  moral  lapses,  his  ob- 
sessions, physical  deterioration,  and  infertility  are  easily  ex- 
plained. In  many  instances  the  strong  and  ill-controlled  pas- 
sions emanating  from  the  unsymmetric  brain  of  the  genius 
lead  to  habits  that  enhance  the  degeneracy  already  existing. 
In  many  geniuses,  therefore,  we  are  confronted  by  both 
primary  and  secondary  degeneracy  in  varying  degree  and  pro- 
portions. 

Suflfering  has  been  well  said  to  be  "  the  toll  that  genius  pays 
to  pain."  The  list  of  geniuses  who  have  suflfered  from  nervous 
affections  is  a  long  one.  Lombroso,^*  MacDonald,^'  and  Nis- 
bet,^'  in  particular,  have  collected  data  that  bear  very  pertinently 
upon  the  degeneracy  side  of  genius. 

**  Degeneration,  Max  Nordau.  "  L.  Homme  cle  Genie. 

"  Abnormal  Man.  "  The  Insanity  of  Genius. 


46o  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

/Esop,  Virgil,  Demosthenes,  Cicero,  and  Cato  were  un- 
doubtedly neuropaths.  The  stammering  of  Demosthenes  is 
famiHar  to  every  school-boy.  Socrates  had  a  familiar  genius 
or  demon  that  dominated  the  hallucinations  of  which  he  was  the 
victim,  Pausanias,  the  Greek  traveller  and  geographer,  mur- 
dered a  slave,  and  was  ever  after  pursued  and  tormented  by  the 
spirit  of  the  murdered  youth.  The  immortal  Lucretius  suffered 
from  intermittent  mania,  and  suicided  at  forty-four.  Peter  the 
Great  had  epilepsy ;  one  of  his  sons  had  convulsions,  and  the 
other  hallucinations.  Linne  was  a  precocious  genius  who  had 
a  hydrocephalic  cranium.  Raphael  was  often  tempted  to  suicide ; 
his  art  depicted  in  never-fading  colors  some  of  his  own  mysti- 
cism. To  him  the  characters  he  painted  were  real.  His  paints 
were  mixed  with  a  most  vivid  imagination,  and  tinged  with 
morbidity  and  religious  fervor.  Pascal  suffered  from  nervous 
troubles  and  paralysis  all  his  life,  and  died  in  convulsions.  Sir 
Walter  Scott  was  a  delicate,  nervous  child.  He  had  paralysis 
of  his  right  lower  limb  before  he  was  two  years  of  age.  He  was 
subject  to  apoplectic  attacks,  and  had  visions.  Voltaire's  genius 
was  extremely  precocious.  His  degeneracy,  however,  is  not  so 
evident  as  that  of  many  other  geniuses,  although  as  a  child  he 
was  very  feeble.  He  lived  to  be  eighty-three,  and  died  of 
apoplexy. 

Jean  Jacques  Rousseau  was  one  of  the  most  typic  degen- 
erates who  ever  entered  the  ranks  of  genius.  He  manifested 
many  of  the  symptoms  of  circular  insanity,  and  eventually  died 
of  apoplexy.  That  there  was  a  special  element  of  abnormal 
sexuality  in  him  is  generally  accepted.  Heinrich  Heine  died  of 
chronic  disease  of  the  spine,  presumably  tuberculosis.  This,  of 
course,  has  some  bearing  upon  his  nervous  integrity.  If  he 
suffered  greatly  from  the  spinal  disease,  it  is  hardly  probable 
that  he  escaped  all  nervous  injury,  whether  he  was  primarily  a 
degenerate  or  not. 

Moliere  was  a  sufferer  from  convulsions.  The  slightest 
excitement  or  opposition  would  suffice  to  precipitate  an  attack. 
Mozart  was  a  musical  prodigy.  He  composed  at  four  years 
of  age.     He  was  affected  by  fainting  fits,  and  was  warned  of 


GENIUS    AND    DEGENERACY  461 

impending  death  by  a  vision.  He  died  of  brain  disease  at  thirty- 
six.  Cuvier,  Victor  Hugo,  Chopin,  Bruno,  Conite,  Madame  de 
Stael,  Swift,  Johnson,  Covvper,  Southey,  Shelley,  Byron,  Car- 
lyle,  Goldsmith,  Lamb,  Poe,  Keats,  Coleridge,  De  Quincey,  Chat- 
terton,  George  Eliot,  George  Sand,  Alfred  De  Mussct,  Newton, 
Chateaubriand,  De  Balzac,  Chatham,  Burns,  Dickens, — all  these 
beacon-lights  of  the  history  of  genius  showed  indubitable  evi- 
dences of  degeneracy.  In  some  of  them  the  evidences  of  mental 
alienation  were  very  striking.  Hugo  was  dominated  by  the 
egotistic  idea  of  becoming  the  greatest  man  of  all  time.  Gior- 
dano Bruno  thought  he  contained  the  essence  of  God.  De  Stael 
was  an  opium-eater ;  she  feared  the  sensation  of  cold  after 
death,  and  stipulated  in  her  will  that  she  be  buried  in  furs. 
Swift  was  of  insane  stock ;  he  was  naturally  cruel  and  given  to 
violent  and  aggressive  outbursts  of  temper.  He  suffered  from 
serious  impairment  of  vision  and  audition,  with  muscular  twitch- 
ings  and  facial  paralysis.  Shelley  was  called  "  mad ;"  he  had 
hallucinations,  and  was  the  victim  of  the  opium  habit.  Charles 
Lamb  was  confined  in  an  asylum.  A  sister  of  his  suffered  a 
similar  fate,  and  is  said  to  have  murdered  her  mother  during 
one  of  her  maniacal  attacks.  Johnson  had  convulsions  and 
cramps,  hallucinations,  and  at  one  time  aphasia.  Southey  had 
a  neurotic  ancestry,  and  died  an  imbecile.  Covvper  was  afflicted 
by  melancholia.  He  attempted  suicide  on  numerous  occasions. 
His  melancholia  finally  assumed  the  religious  type,  and  he  was 
confined  in  an  asylum  for  a  year  and  a  half.  Byron's  ancestry 
was  bad,  and  his  brain  was  as  clubbed  as  his  foot.  Thomas 
Chatterton  was  a  weakling,  called  back  to  the  bosom  of  nature 
before  his  time,  through  the  agency  of  self-murder.  Poe,  the 
man  who  stands  out  in  boldest  relief  in  American  literature,  was 
a  dipsomaniac  and  not  unlikely  a  lunatic.  Dark,  indeed,  was 
his  Raven,  but  more  sombre  still  the  recesses  of  the  mind  from 
which  it  flew.  A  change  of  mood,  and  lo !  his  madman  con- 
fesses a  murder  in  prose  that  possibly  only  a  madman  could 
have  written. 

The  list  of  geniuses  who  have  been  shown  to  be  indubitably 
insane  is  a  long  one.    Vico  died  demented  ;  Haller  was  religiously 


462  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

insane ;  Ampere  believed  himself  possessed  by  the  devil ;  Na- 
thaniel Lee,  the  dramatist,  did  his  best  work  while  insane ; 
Thomas  Lloyd,  Schumann,  Gerard  de  Nerval,  Baudelaire,  Comte, 
Torquato  Tasso,  Dean  Swift,  Rousseau,  and  Schopenhauer  are 
among  the  great  men  whose  histories  would  adorn  the  pages  of  an 
alienist's  records  quite  as  well  as  they  have  the  history  of  genius. 

In  reviewing  the  lives  of  the  various  geniuses  herein  enumer- 
ated, it  is  difficult  to  discriminate  in  selecting  illustrations,  the 
wealth  of  evidence  is  so  great.  The  history  of  one  is  practically 
the  history  of  all.  Their  neuropathy  is  the  same,  though  its 
manifestations  vary. 

Some  of  the  signs  of  degeneracy  quoted  by  various  authors 
as  characteristic  of  certain  geniuses  are  incompetent  testimony, 
although  in  most  instances  the  degeneracy  is  proved  by  other 
conditions.  The  paralysis  of  Linne  and  the  senile  dementia  that 
preceded  his  death ;  the  apoplexy  of  Voltaire,  that  destroyed  him 
at  eighty-three,  and  the  slight  thickening  of  the  walls  of  his 
cranium ;  the  injury  to  the  leg  of  Michael  Angelo  and  the  mental 
symptoms  that  followed  it ;  the  "  cerebral  fever"  that  destroyed 
the  children  of  Cuvier ;  the  delirium  of  the  mortal  sickness  that 
destroyed  Madame  de  Stael,  and  the  irritability  of  the  dyspeptic 
Carlyle  are,  when  taken  alone,  weak  points  in  the  degeneracy 
argument,  although  they  form  a  part  of  the  neuropathic  ensemble 
that  dominated  the  lives  of  these  great  personages.  Care  is  not 
always  taken  to  differentiate  secondary  acquired  conditions  from 
primary  degeneracy.  Acquired  brain  disease  from  alcohol,  syph- 
ilis, various  infections,  and  injury  must  be  given  due  weight  in 
the  physical  and  psychic  study  of  genius.  These  conditions  are 
of  no  importance  from  the  genius-degeneracy  stand-point,  save 
in  so  far  as  they  enhance  the  primary  neuropathy  and  their 
effects  may  be  transmitted  to  succeeding  generations.  The 
acquired  neuropathy  of  one  generation  may  be  the  hereditary 
degeneracy  of  the  next. 

PHYSICAL   ANOMALIES   AND    MORBID   ANATOMY   OF   GENIUS 

The  actual  physical  anomalies  of  geniuses  are  many  and 
suggestive ;  a  few  only  will  be  quoted  here.    Acquired  disease  is. 


GENIUS   AND   DEGENERACY  463 

of  course,  an  important  factor  in  many  of  them.  The  skull  of 
Pascal,  who  had  been  a  neuropath  from  birth,  was  abnormal,  the 
principal  sutures  being  fused  and  indistinguishable.  His  brain 
and  meninges  showed,  on  autopsy,  extensive  pathologic  changes. 
Petrarch,  Meckel,  Donizetti,  Byron,  and  Humboldt  showed  the 
same  cranial  characteristics  as  Pascal.  Dean  Swift's  brain  was 
the  seat  of  softening,  effusion,  and  arterial  disease  ;  his  skull  was 
thick  and  roughened,  and  his  cerebellar  region  small.  Kant, 
Bichat,  and  Dante  had  asymmetric  and  irregular  skulls,  Kant's 
skull  being  especially  deformed.  Vico,  Clement  VI.,  Mabillon, 
and  Malebranche  had  their  skulls  fractured,  and  in  the  case  of 
the  two  latter  the  injury  coincided  with  the  first  appearance  of 
their  genius.  Donizetti  and  Schumann  had  meningitis.  Des- 
cartes, Schumann,  Dante,  and  Gambretta  had  very  small  heads, 
— sub-microcephaly, — whilst  Cuvier,  Milton,  Gibbon,  and  Linne 
had  hydrocephaly.  Liebig  and  Tiedemann  had  cerebral  edema. 
Rousseau  had  ventricular  effusion.  There  was  a  disparity  in  the 
development  of  the  brain  hemispheres  in  Gauss  and  Bichat,  the 
preponderance  in  each  case  being  upon  the  left  side. 

The  studies  of  Bischoff  and  Rudinger  are  claimed  to  have 
shown  cerebral  anomalies  in  all  of  a  series  of  eighteen  brains  of 
distinguished  German  savants. 

Comparisons  of  the  average  brain-weights  of  normal  subjects, 
insane,  geniuses,  and  epileptics  show  that,  while  in  certain  indi- 
viduals among  both  the  insane  and  geniuses  the  brain  is  much 
above  the  normal,  the  average  among  the  insane  is  below,  and 
that  of  geniuses  above,  the  normal.^^ 

THE   FEMALE   GENIUSES 

The  female  side  of  genius,  albeit  not  prolific  in  numbers  or 
accomplishments,  has  been  especially  characterized  by  degen- 
eracy. Women  who  enter  certain  fields  of  competition  with  men 
are  likely  to  be  masculine  in  temperament  and  physique,  which 
is  in  itself  a  sign  of  degeneracy.  As  Edmond  de  Goncourt  ex- 
pressed it,  "  There  are  no  women  geniuses  ;  the  women  of  genius 

"  Welcker,  quoted  by  MacDonald,  Abnormal  Man. 


464  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

are  men."    This  is  as  characteristic  of  the  female  genius  as  it  is  of 
the  true  criminal  among  women. 

Fewer  women  than  men  have  distinguished  themselves  in  the 
sciences,  in  letters,  and  the  arts,— they  rarely  reach  the  heights, 
— and  these  few  have  had  their  full  share  of  psychopathic  defects. 
Ancient  writers,  among  whom  were  Euripides,  Juvenal,  and 
Aretino,  asserted  the  licentiousness  of  women  of  letters.  The 
immorality  of  many  of  them  is  historic.  History  has  little  that 
is  flattering  to  say  of  the  morals,  whatever  it  may  grant  the 
intellect,  of  Sappho ;  of  Sheba's  great  and  glorious  queen ;  of 
the  high  priestess  of  Venus,  Cleopatra ;  of  Catherine  the  Great, 
Catherine  de  Medicis,  Marguerite  of  Navarre,  Madame  de 
Stael,  George  Sand,  and  George  Eliot.  In  more  recent  times 
literature,  art,  and  the  stage  have  been  graced  by  women  geniuses 
whose  qualities  of  intellect  do  them  and  the  race  credit,  but 
whose  regard  for  the  proprieties  is  not  such  as  would  tend  to 
make  them  safe  guides  and  mentors  for  womanhood  in  general. 
The  salons  of  some  women  geniuses  have  not  been  a  suitable 
training-ground  for  youth,  and  have  had  little  of  virtue,  if  much 
of  art  and  letters,  to  inculcate.  That  the  world  is  prepared  to 
discount  the  moral  lapses  of  certain  female  geniuses  is  just,  but 
in  nowise  controverts  their  degeneracy. 

GENIUS    IN    THE    INSANE 

Despite  the  evidence  showing  that  extraordinary  intellectual 
capacity  is  often  associated  with  various  forms  of  nervous  or 
mental  derangement,  it  cannot  be  argued  that  madness  and  genius 
are  identical,  "  any  more  than,"  as  Royse  ^*  remarks,  "  it  can  be 
claimed  that  the  worm  in  the  heart  of  the  sequoia  gigantea  of  the 
Calif ornian  forests  proves  that  the  monarch  tree  and  its  parasite 
are  the  same  thing."  Insanity  and  neuropathy  in  general  are  the 
"  worm  i'  the  bud"  of  genius,  the  "  fly  in  the  'pothecary's  oint- 
ment"— nothing  more.  Genius  and  insanity  are  coequivalents 
and  interchangeable,  but  not  identical.  The  condition  of  the 
brain  of  the  genius   often   carries   him   to  the   border-line  of 

"  Op.  cit. 


GENIUS   AND   DEGENERACY  465 

insanity,  or  even  beyond  it;  the  condition  of  the  brain  of  the 
insane  often  evolves  psychic  phenomena  that  are  either  to  be 
classed  as  genius  or  something  so  nearly  akin  to  it  that  the 
difference  is  one  of  degree,  rather  than  kind,  but  this  does  not 
prove  that  genius  is  insanity,  nor  insanity  genius.  It  must  be 
admitted,  however,  that  the  mental  operations  of  some  of  the 
indubitably  insane  are  a  fair  criterion  of  those  of  genius.  Shake- 
speare recognized  the  attributes  of  genius  in  the  insane  in  the 
lines  of  Hamlet : 

"  How  pregnant  sometimes  his  replies  are, 
A  happiness  that  often  madness  hits  on. 
Which  sanity  and  reason  could  not  be 
So  prosperously  delivered  of." 

That  there  is  a  quite  harmonious  relation  between  certain 
phases  of  recognized  insanity  and  the  psychology  of  genius  is 
familiar  to  alienists.  The  mind  in  each  instance  abounds  with 
ideas  and  imagery, — whether  fantastic  or  no, — peculiar  associa- 
tions of  ideas,  and  a  faculty  of  observation  that  are  not  observed 
in  the  normal  individual.  All  impressions  and  perceptions  are 
more  vivid  than  those  of  the  average  man.  Mediocrity  of  idea- 
tion is  not  likely  to  be  observed.  The  mind  is  disposed  to  alter- 
nate between  ecstatic  excitement  and  profound  melancholy.  The 
fact  that  these  psychic  phenomena  depend  upon  changes  in  the 
brain,  ranging  from  morbid  activity  to  extreme  depression,  and 
affecting  the  intellectual  and  emotion  centres  in  varying  ways, 
would  seem  to  be  a  logical  explanation  of  the  similarity  of  men- 
tality existing  between  some  geniuses  and  insane,  which  again 
suggests  that  the  healthy  brain  is  that  of  the  average  man,  the 
dominant  characteristic  of  a  healthy  brain  being  stability  of 
equilibrium ;  this  in  deference  to  the  law  that  exaltation  or  de- 
pression of  one  area  of  brain-cells  and  its  faculty  or  faculties 
must  result  in  a  compensatory  exaltation  or  depression  of  other 
areas. 

Lombroso  has  advanced  the  view  that  the  condition  of  some 
geniuses  during  their  moments  of  idea  creation  is  distinctively 
epileptoid  in  nature, — a  psychic  epilepsy.     He  lays  great  stress 

30 


466  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

upon  this  feature  of  the  genius  of  Mahomet,  St.  Paul,  Napoleon, 
Moliere,  De  Goncourt,  and  Destoieffsky.^®  He  attributes  the 
psychic  exaltation  of  the  moment  of  the  creation  of  ideas  of 
genius  to  an  irritation  of  the  cerebral  cortex  similar  to  that  which 
affects  the  motor  areas  in  true  epilepsy.  Obviously,  this  is 
rational  enough  if  we  consider  the  possibility  of  a  localization  of 
irritation  in  the  frontal  cerebral  cortex. 

Morbid  conditions  of  the  brain  are  not  necessarily  associated 
with  insanity.  Thus  is  has  been  shown  that  all  hallucinations  are 
by  no  means  proof  of  insanity,  provided  the  victim  recognizes 
them  as  hallucinations.  On  the  other  hand,  the  individual  who 
has  visions,  and  distorts  them  into  angels  or  devils,  and  accepts 
them  as  realities,  is  decidedly  open  to  suspicion. 

A  case  is  related  by  Nisbet  of  an  intelligent  man  who  saw 
human  figures,  birds,  and  horses  floating  about  him  in  the  air 
for  some  months,  but  he  knew  them  to  be  hallucinations,  and 
wrote  a  detailed  description  of  his  case  for  a  scientific  society. 
He  finally  applied  a  few  leeches  to  his  neck,  with  the  result  that 
his  visions  disappeared.  If  this  individual  had  been  of  a  suffi- 
ciently emotional  and  imaginative  turn  of  mind,  he  might  possibly 
have  taken  his  position  in  the  ranks  of  the  geniuses  and  evolved 
a  romance  or  poem,  or  a  new  system  of  theology. 

It  is  a  matter  of  common  observation  that  the  senses  of  idiots 
are  not  uniformly  blunted,  one  or  more  senses  being  sometimes 
brilliantly  acute.  Blind  Tom  may  be  quoted  as  an  example  of 
the  great  development  of  the  musical  faculty  in  a  semi-idiot. 
Turner,  who  has  been  described  as  one  of  the  seven  supreme 
colorists  of  the  world,  and  one  of  England's  masters  in  land- 
scape painting, — by  grace  of  Ruskin's  patronage, — was  little 
better  than  an  idiot,  as  shown  by  his  literary  compositions. 

A  case  is  related  of  a  brilliant  Russian  who  lost  his  mind  at 
the  age  of  twenty-seven  but  retained  a  wonderful  memory.  He 
could  solve  the  most  difficult  mathematical  problems,  and,  by  a 
single  hearing,  could  memorize  the  longest  poem  or  prose  com- 
position. 

"  L'Homme  de  Genie. 


GENIUS   AND   DEGENERACY  467 

There  are  many  peculiar  examples  of  the  possession  of  ex- 
traordinary faculties  by  subjects  of  low  mental  development.  A 
case  in  point  is  that  of  a  man  who  could  remember  the  names, 
ages,  and  dates  of  deaths,  with  the  names  of  the  mourners  and 
pall-bearers,  of  every  person  who  had  died  in  his  town  for  thirty- 
five  years.  Aside  from  this  peculiar  faculty,  he  was  a  perfect 
idiot,  and  could  not  answer  the  simplest  questions  intelligently. 
The  compensatory  acuteness  of  certain  senses  in  the  blind  is  well 
understood.  Cases  have  been  known  in  which  a  blind  patient 
acquired  so  unerring  a  sense  of  smell  as  to  be  able  to  distinguish 
friends  by  smelling  their  hands,  or  the  glove  or  handkerchief 
belonging  to  them. 

Maudsley  relates  the  case  of  an  imbecile  who  could  repeat 
verbatim  ct  literatim  entire  pages  of  books  he  had  read  many 
years  before,  even  though  he  did  not  understand  the  meaning 
of  the  words.  Another  case,  an  epileptic,  would  read  a  long 
newspaper  article  once,  and  then,  shutting  his  eyes,  would  repeat 
it  word  for  word.  In  this  case  the  visual  memory  was  extraor- 
dinarily developed.  It  is  well  known  that  some  healthy  per- 
sons can  remember  what  they  have  seen  very  well,  but  promptly 
forget  what  they  have  heard.  This  is  a  point  that  some  educators 
do  not  seem  to  understand.  Some  students  I  have  known  could 
never  learn  from  lectures,  but  were  very  quick  to  learn  by  read- 
ing. This  observation  is  trite,  perhaps,  but  it  is  not  often  utilized 
practically  in  pedagogics. 

Epilepsy  sometimes  produces  very  peculiar  alterations  in  the 
mental  faculties.  Instances  have  been  known  where  an  epileptic 
has  oscillated  between  periods  of  vicious  depravity  and  the  most 
ascetic  piety.  During  the  stage  of  excitement  through  which  the 
brain  of  the  epileptic  passes,  brilliant  conceptions  and  lofty  flights 
of  poetic  or  romantic  imagery  are  not  unusual.  Previous  to  an 
epileptic  fit,  the  special  senses  may  become  very  acute.  Wins- 
low  relates  the  case  of  an  epileptic  who.  while  confined  in  a 
room  at  the  top  of  the  house,  could  hear  all  the  details  of  a  con- 
versation carried  on  in  low  tones  in  the  kitchen.  Insane  patients 
sometimes  surprise  one  with  the  depth  of  their  reflections  upon 
subjects  that  are  entirely  foreign  to  their  station  in  life,  and  far 


468  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

beyond  their  intellectual  capacity  when  in  a  healthy  condition  of 
mind. 

Lombroso  relates  the  case  of  an  ignorant  Italian  journeyman 
tailor,  confined  for  the  murder  of  a  little  girl,  who  wrote  a  very 
eloquent,  graphic,  and  grammatical  account  of  his  crime.  His 
memoir  shows  the  association  of  hallucination  with  a  perfect 
clearness  of  perception  and  an  apparent  consciousness  of  right 
and  wrong. 

Winslow  relates  the  case  of  an  insane  man,  who  wrote  an 
able,  philosophic,  and  erudite  essay  on  "  Original  Sin."  At  the 
time  he  wrote  this  essay  he  labored  under  the  delusion  that  his 
own  family  had  conspired  to  poison  him. 

Another  case  is  related,  of  a  young  man  who  was  quite  stupid 
in  mathematics,  and,  indeed,  everything  else,  while  at  school,  but 
becoming  insane,  he  developed  most  extraordinary  mathematical 
ability.  He  finally  recovered  his  health  and  sank  back  to  the 
level  of  a  dunce.  Many  writers  relate  cases  of  insanit}'  in  which 
a  rare  talent  for  versification  developed,  only  to  disappear  when 
the  mind  cleared  up. 

In  my  own  experience  I  have  seen  some  very  striking  ex- 
amples of  talent  in  the  insane.  One  of  my  patients  at  Blackwell's 
Island,  New  York,  who  had  been  sent  to  the  penitentiary  for 
theft  and  afterwards  became  violently  insane,  developed  a  most 
extraordinary  talent  for  embroidery.  She  was  coarse  and  un- 
couth, had  no  artistic  tendencies,  and  was  as  repulsive  a  creature 
as  could  well  be  imagined,  yet  she  produced  some  of  the  most  ar- 
tistic and  beautiful  creations  in  embroidery  that  I  have  ever  seen. 

A  half-witted  convict  under  my  charge  suddenly  took  the 
notion  of  making  artificial  flowers,  and  in  a  few  weeks  could 
rival  the  most  expert  professional  in  that  line.  Another  insane 
criminal  made  beautiful  carvings  in  wood  and  ivory.  He  had 
never,  so  far  as  could  be  learned,  had  any  instruction  in  the  art. 
Another  insane  patient,  who  had  at  one  time  been  a  sailor,  built 
most  beautiful  models  of  ships. 

A  very  striking  illustration  of  the  development  of  genius  in  an 
insane  patient  came  under  my  observation  at  the  New  York 
Immigrant  Hospital.    A  coarse,  illiterate,  and  vulgar  man,  forty 


GENIUS   AND    DEGENERACY  469 

years  of  age,  developed,  while  in  the  asylum,  great  architectural 
talent.  His  forte  was  apparently  the  drawing  of  plans  of 
military  structures,  such  as  fortifications,  barracks,  military 
schools,  and  hospitals.  Military  men  to  whom  I  showed  some 
of  his  work  were  astounded  by  its  accuracy  and  originality. 
He  also  drew  up  structural  specifications  which  were  but  little 
short  of  marvellous,  I  remember  one  of  his  productions  that 
created  great  amusement.  He  drew  up  an  elaborate  plan  for  a 
great  military  garrison  and  head-quarters  at  West  Point,  the 
object  of  which  was  to  rid  the  country  of  "  West  Point  dudes," 
for  whom  he  had  a  bitter  antipathy.  He  wrote  a  very  clear, 
logical,  and  eloquent  argument  in  favor  of  his  plan  to  President 
Garfield,  and  gave  it  to  me  to  mail. 

Another  patient  in  the  same  institution  presented  an  illustra- 
tion of  the  religious  frenzy  of  the  insane.  He  was  a  low  ruffian 
from  the  "  Five  Points"  district,  where  the  toughest  of  the  tough 
are  bred,  and  to  which  he  had  recently  been  imported  from 
London.  Morals  and  religion  were  to  him  an  unknown  quantity ; 
he  knew  them  only  as  a  barbed-wire  fence  set  up  by  society — his 
mortal  enemy — to  prevent  him  from  getting  an  honest  living  by 
garroting  belated  pedestrians  and  attending  to  superfluous  silver- 
ware in  the  houses  of  the  plutocracy.  Shortly  after  entering  the 
asylum  he  began  to  write  hymns  and  hold  impromptu  revivals 
for  the  edification  of  the  other  patients.  He  finally  made  a 
specialty  of  writing  hymns  and  singing  them  directly  to  Heaven. 
He  would  stand  through  all  the  hours  of  daylight  and  far  into 
the  night,  gazing  upward  through  the  bars  of  his  window  and 
warbling  hymns  of  his  own  composition — and  beautiful  hymns 
they  were,  too.  So  persistently  did  this  man  sing  his  hymns  in 
this  position,  that  the  muscles  of  his  neck  became  permanently 
contracted,  and  he  was  compelled  to  gaze  heavenward  whether 
he  would  or  no. 

To  an  augmentation  of  mental  activity  due  to  brain  disease  or 
injury,  the  genius  of  some  great  men  has  been  attributed.  Lom- 
broso  *°  cites,  among  others,  Clement  VI.  and  Vico,  who  had 

*  L'Homme  de  Genie. 


470  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

their  skulls  fractured  in  childhood,  and  Gratry,  Malebranche,  and 
Mabillon,  who  rose  from  mediocrity  to  greatness  after  similar 
accidents.  He  also  mentions  the  development  of  genius  during 
febrile  cerebral  excitation.  The  same  author  lays  stress  upon  the 
frequent  development  of  art  in  the  insane.  He  reports  one 
hundred  and  eight  cases  of  this  kind. 

During  their  lucid  intervals  some  insane  patients  remember 
the  clearness  of  mental  perception  which  characterizes  their 
paroxysms  of  insanity.  An  insane  patient  once  said  to  a  cele- 
brated physician,  "  I  always  await  with  great  impatience  the 
accession  of  my  periods  of  insanity.  During  their  presence — a 
period  of  some  ten  or  twelve  hours — I  enjoy  great  pleasure. 
Everything  appears  easy  to  me — there  are  no  obstacles  to  any 
intellectual  efifort  I  may  attempt.  I  remember  long  passages  of 
Latin  authors.  I  never  could  versify,  yet  when  the  spell  is  on  I 
compose  rhymes  as  easily  as  prose.  But  I  am  cunning,  malicious, 
and  fertile  in  all  kinds  of  expedients." 

The  celebrated  Dr.  Benjamin  Rush  long  ago  said: 

"  The  records  of  the  wit  and  cunning  of  madmen  are  numerous  in 
every  country.  Talents  for  eloquence,  poetry,  painting,  music,  and  un- 
common ingenuity  in  the  mechanical  arts  are  often  evolved  in  a  state 
of  madness.  A  gentleman  whom  I  attended  in  a  hospital  often  delighted 
as  well  as  astonished  the  patients  and  officers  by  his  display  of  oratory 
in  preaching  from  a  table  in  the  hospital  yard  every  Sunday.  A  female 
patient  of  mine,  who  became  insane,  sang  songs  and  hymns  of  her  own 
composition  with  a  tone  and  voice  so  soft  that  I  lingered  and  listened 
with  delight  every  time  I  visited  her.  She  had  never  displayed  either 
poetical  or  musical  talent  prior  to  her  illness." 

The  brilliancy  of  the  intellect  in  incipient  insanity  has  been 
noted  by  many  observers.  In  the  preliminary  stages  of  insanity 
the  patient  sometimes  shows  unusual  vivacity  of  attention  and  a 
remarkable  power  of  memory.  He  has  a  highly  developed  fac- 
ulty of  observation  and  illustration,  and  possibly  an  acute  artistic 
sensibility,  with  great  exaltation  of  the  higher  emotions.  His 
mind,  for  the  nonce,  is  an  inexhaustible  storehouse  of  brilliant 
thoughts,  and  the  extent  of  his  information  may  be  astounding, 
if  the  paucity  of  his  intellectual  resources  when  in  a  normal 


GENIUS   AND   DEGENERACY  471 

condition  be  taken  into  consideration.  Long- forgotten  impres- 
sions are  revived, — indeed,  associations  of  ideas  come  up  which 
his  brain  hardly  conceived  at  the  time  the  original  impressions 
were  made. 

History  is  not  without  examples  of  individuals  who  were 
sheer  lunatics,  yet  have  come  to  be  classed  as  geniuses.  Jeanne 
D'Arc  is  one  of  these.  Her  intrepidity  of  will  was  based  upon  an 
insane  confidence  in  her  own  infallibility.  She  believed  in  her 
visions  and  hallucinations ;  her  faith  rested  upon  them  as  upon  a 
rock.  This  being  the  case,  her  so-called  heroism  was  a  com- 
bination of  sheer  fanaticism  and  insanity,  quite  as  much  so  as 
that  of  the  Dervish  who  dies  striking  bravely  at  odds  which 
make  his  bravery  suicidal.  The  heroism  of  Jeanne  D'Arc  and 
the  spirit  of  the  latter-day  "  bottle-smasher"  were  of  the  same 
kidney.  One  of  these  women  was  born  too  late  and  the  other 
too  early,  else  they  might  have  met  upon  common  ground. 

One  of  the  most  noted  of  insane  geniuses  was  the  celebrated 
Englishman,  William  Blake,  artist,  engraver,  and  poet.  Ruskin, 
who  had  a  peculiar  bent  for  the  admiration  of  genius  in  de- 
fectives, said : 

"  The  book  of  Job  engraved  by  Blake  is  of  the  highest  rank  in  cer- 
tain characters  of  imagination  and  expression.  In  expressing  conditions 
of  glaring  and  flickering  light,  Blake  is  greater  than  Rembrandt.  Blake 
held  familiar  converse  with  spirits,  and  found  spectres  so  accommodating 
that  they  posed  to  him  for  their  portraits." 

The  history  of  theology  is  illumined  with  visionary  geniuses 
endowed  with  the  gift  of  prophecy  and  facilities  for  close  com- 
munion with  God.  These  prophets  and  seers  have  left  an  im- 
pression that  shall  last  so  long  as  theology  itself  endures,  yet 
the  visions  of  epileptic  Mahomet,  of  Bunyan,  and  Martin  Luther 
were  the  flickerings  of  insanity,  albeit  called  the  sacred  fire  of 
holy  inspiration.  In  this  respect  they  resembled  their  forebears  of 
more  ancient  times. 

Nowhere  in  the  range  of  psychology  can  the  egotism,  self- 
sufficiency,  and  exaltation  of  the  imaginative  faculties  character- 
istic of  mental  disease  be  better  studied  than  in  the  life  and  works 


472  THE   DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

of  Emanuel  Swedenborg.  This  man's  claim  to  theologic  au- 
thority rests  entirely  upon  his  arrogant  and  egotistic  assumption 
of  supernatural  knowledge  and  communion  with  the  illustrious 
dead.  Strange  to  say,  his  career  was  contemporaneous  with  that 
of  the  great  apostle  of  intellectual  freedom,  the  immortal  Vol- 
taire. There  was  no  literary  balderdash  or  evasion  of  the  issue 
in  Swedenborg's  career.  He  was  plain  in  expression,  matter-of- 
fact,  and  very  circumstantial  in  his  accounts  of  his  marvellous 
experiences.  Unlike  some  expounders  of  a  creed,  he  believed 
implicitly  in  his  own  fantastic  doctrines.  It  is  but  human  to 
believe  the  evidence  of  the  senses.  Swedenborg  saw,  felt,  and 
heard  all  that  he  claims,  but,  unlike  the  intelligent  victim  of 
hallucinations  who  wrote  his  own  history  for  a  scientific  society, 
he  did  not  recognize  the  phenomena  his  senses  brought  before 
him  as  illusions  and  hallucinations.  To  him  they  were  the  very 
embodiment  and  soul  of  realism. 

Swedenborg's  father  was  a  noted  bishop,  of  some  literary 
pretensions,  the  author  of  a  Swedish  grammar  and  dictionary. 
Strange  as  it  may  seem,  old  Jesper  Swedenborg  alternated  be- 
tween his  dry  compilation  of  grammar  and  lexicon  and  com- 
munion with  spirits.  The  old  bishop  had  a  guardian  angel,  who 
used  to  guide  him  in  his  studies.  While  he  was  studying  the- 
ology, this  angel  appeared  and  asked  him  what  he  had  read.  The 
student  enumerated  some  religious  works,  including  the  Bible. 
His  angelic  monitor  then  suggested  other  works  pertaining  to 
theology  as  likely  to  be  valuable  in  his  education.  Bishop 
Swedenborg  also  claimed  to  cure  the  sick  after  the  manner  of 
Christ. 

With  such  a  paternity,  Emanuel  Swedenborg  was  certainly 
entitled  to  all  the  attributes  of  prophets  and  seers.  He  received 
a  good  education,  with  quite  a  smattering  of  science,  but  this  did 
not  save  him  from  the  workings  of  a  diseased  imagination.  His 
mental  make-up  was  a  queer  one.  He  was  profoundly  versed  in 
mathematics  and  astronomy,  and  even  studied  anatomy.  He 
wrote  several  books  on  the  latter  subject  by  way  of  diversion.  It 
is  certainly  peculiar  that  on  such  a  foundation  he  eventually  built 
a  superstructure  of  superstition  and  visionary  theology  which 


GENIUS   AND   DEGENERACY  473 

has  been  handed  down  to  the  present  generation  as  the  product  of 
Divine  inspiration.     Insanity  is  the  only  explanation. 

We  can  imagine  the  modern  anatomist  dissecting  away  the 
corporeal  parts  of  the  body  in  the  endeavor  to  isolate  the  soul, 
which,  according  to  Swedenborg,  would  retain  the  shape  of  the 
body,  but  was  composed  of  what  he  termed  "  finer  and  more 
subtle  elements." 

Swedenborg  believed  in  dreams,  as  many  another  has  done. 
Some  are  not  so  sceptical  as  was  Virgil,  who,  in  his  description 
of  the  gates  of  Tartarus,  said : 

"  Full  in  the  midst  of  the  infernal  road, 
An  elm  displays  her  dusky  arms  abroad; 
The  god  of  sleep  there  hides  his  heavy  head; 
And  empty  dreams  on  every  leaf  are  spread." 

The  following  extract  from  Swedenborg's  diary  effectually 
demonstrates  his  mental  condition : 

"  During  the  whole  time  I  slept  extremely  well  at  night,  which  is 
more  than  favorable  to  my  ecstacies,  both  before  and  after  sleep.  My 
thoughts  about  matters  and  things  were  very  clear.  I  resisted  the  power 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  I  saw  hideous  spectres,  but  without  life.  They 
were  terrible,  and,  though  bound,  they  kept  moving  their  hands.  They 
were  in  company  with  an  animal,  by  which  I  was  attacked.  It  seemed 
as  if  I  were  on  a  mountain,  below  which  there  was  an  abyss  with  knots 
in  it.  I  was  trying  to  help  myself  by  clinging  to  a  knot.  I  was  standing 
in  my  dream  by  a  machine  moved  by  a  wheel.  I  was  caught  in  its 
spokes  and  carried  up." 

And  this  from  the  founder  of  a  creed ! 

Madness  assumes  different  phases,  according  to  the  age  in 
which  it  occurs.  The  crank  of  to-day  is  the  inspired  prophet  or 
genius  of  yesterday.  Peter  the  Hermit  would  now  be  imprisoned 
as  a  dangerous  lunatic  ;  Johann  Most  would  have  been  the  idol  of 
the  Parisian  populace  in  the  days  of  the  Reign  of  Terror.  The 
knife  wielded  by  crack-brained  Charlotte  Corday  was  the  magic 
wand  of  the  liberator ;  the  poniard  that  Cesario  drove  into  the 
vitals  of  poor  Carnot  was  the  weapon  of  the  vulgar  assassin. 
Wilkes  Booth  should  have  been  a  regicide,  but  he  was  born  too 


474  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

late,  yet  in  his  disordered  mind  he  was  true  to  the  old  principle 
of  destroying  oppressors  of  human  liberty.  The  assassination  of 
a  Garfield  is  not  to  be  mentioned  in  the  same  category  with  the 
dynamiting  of  a  Czar,  but  the  impulses  and  reasoning  of  the 
diseased  minds  that  conceive  such  murders  are  the  same.  Around 
the  heads  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  James  A.  Garfield,  and  William 
McKinley  we  hold  the  halo  of  martyrdom.  The  perverted  minds 
of  Booth,  Guiteau,  and  Czolgosz  beheld  in  them  tyrants  of  more 
than  ordinarily  vicious  mould.  In  Carnot  we  see  an  advanced 
statesman  and  apostle  of  liberty.  To  Cesario  he  was  the  mortal 
enemy  of  society,  a  serpent  in  the  pathway  of  progress  that  was 
to  be  crushed  like  any  other  reptile.  Civilization,  seeing  these 
things,  increases  taxes  and  builds  more  jails  and  fewer  schools. 
It  is  to  be  remembered  that  the  mind  is  built  up  by  external 
impressions,  our  ideas  being  largely  reactions  from  these  im- 
pressions. The  genius,  the  theologic  reformer,  the  political 
revolutionist,  the  criminal,  and  the  healthy  man  see  according  to 
their  lights,  and  all  see  differently.  The  difference  in  intellectual 
perception  depends  largely  upon  the  varying  character  of  the  im- 
pressions that  have  been  made  upon  the  brain  while  in  its  plastic 
state.  As  in  sleep  the  automatic  action  of  the  brain  gives  vivid, 
beautiful  dreams  to  some,  and  to  others  nightmares,  so  it  brings 
delightful  day-dreams  to  the  waking  hours  of  some,  and  stern, 
unhappy  realities  to  others.  As  was  exquisitely  sung  by  Homer, 
the  ivory  gate  to  the  brain  admits  manifold  impressions : 

"  Immured  within  the  silent  bower  of  sleep. 
Two  portals  firm  the  various  phantoms  keep. 
Of  ivory  one,  whence  flit  to  mock  the  brain, 
Of  winged  lies,  a  light  phantastic  train; 
The  gate  opposed,  pellucid  valves  adorn, 
And  columns  fair  incase  with  polished  horn, 
Where  images  of  truth  for  passage  wait, 
With  visions  manifest  of  future  fate."  " 

Whatever  the  morbid  state  of  the  brain  underlying  intellectual 
brilliancy  may  be,  it  must  be  remembered  that  individual  equation 

**  The  inspiration  of  the  charming  title  of  Dr.  W.  W.  Ireland's  book. 
Through  the  Ivory  Gate. 


GENIUS    AND    DEGENERACY  475 

controls  the  product  of  the  mind.  To  the  madness  of  certain  of 
tiie  great  geniuses  of  the  world  some  of  their  most  wonderful 
productions  are  perhaps  due,  but  it  was  the  hyperesthesia  of  the 
unstable  particular  brain  that  produced  the  result.  The  cerebral 
excitement  that  in  one  person  results  in  the  production  of  a 
beautiful  poem  or  romance  produces  in  individuals  of  coarser 
mould  intellectual  phenomena  which,  although  they  may  not  be 
entirely  devoid  of  the  fire  of  genius  in  some  cases,  rarely  pro- 
duce anything  of  real  worth,  and,  as  a  rule,  produce  less  than 
nothing.  The  varying  results  of  the  cerebral  excitement  pro- 
duced by  alcohol  and  other  drugs  demonstrate  this  point  very 
clearly.  In  one  individual  the  inspiration  of  genius  develops,  and 
the  excited  brain  produces  a  poem  or  a  drama ;  in  another,  acts 
of  brutality,  or  even  the  impulse  to  rob  and  kill,  may  develop. 
Alcohol  develops  only  brutality  in  brutes,  although  it  may  evolve 
manifestations  of  that  highest  attribute  of  the  mind,  genius,  in 
subjects  of  suitable  organization.  Hasheesh  crazes  the  Malay, 
and  he  runs  amok ;  the  same  drug  painted  beautiful  word 
pictures  upon  the  brain  of  Coleridge.  Laudanum  was  responsible 
for  De  Quincey's  "  Confessions  of  an  English  Opium-Eater," 
one  of  the  gems  of  English  literature,  yet  it  must  not  be  forgotten 
that  it  was  not  to  opium  alone,  but  to  a  combination  of  laudanum 
and  De  Quincey's  brain,  that  thanks  are  due. 


CHAPTER   XII 

PHYSICAL   AND   PSYCHIC    CHARACTERISTICS   OF   THE    CRIMINAL 

General  Considerations. — The  physical  and  psychologic 
study  of  the  crime  class  has  been  of  recent  years  pursued  with 
the  greatest  enthusiasm,  particularly  by  the  European  school  of 
criminal  anthropologists.  A  mass  of  very  interesting  and,  it 
must  be  confessed,  somewhat  conflicting  data  has  been  accumu- 
lated by  various  observers.  Whether  accurate  or  inaccurate,  the 
results  of  these  investigations  must  be  discounted,  so  far  as  their 
application  to  conditions  in  America  is  concerned.  As  elsewhere 
stated  in  this  volume,  conditions  in  Europe  are  not  fair  criteria  of 
those  prevailing  in  this  country,  as  is  obvious  to  any  one  familiar 
with  the  principles  of  evolution  in  their  relation  to  moral,  social, 
and  intellectual  development.  This  point  has  not  received  the 
attention  it  deserves,  yet  around  it  revolves  the  only  possible 
chance  of  reconciling  apparent  discrepancies  in  observations,  and 
of  explaining  deductions  which  at  present  must  seem  absurd  to 
those  who  are  not  actively  working  in  the  field  of  criminal 
anthropology. 

Aside  from  the  influence  of  environment  upon  the  results 
obtained  in  various  researches  in  criminal  anthropology,  we  must 
take  into  account  various  inaccuracies  and  extravagances  of 
statement,  due  to  a  lack  of  breadth  on  the  part  of  certain  in- 
vestigators. When  so  great  an  authority  as  Moritz  Benedikt  can 
justly  be  accused  of  narrowness  in  his  studies  of  the  brains  of 
criminals,  and  of  neglecting  to  study  a  sufficient  number  of 
normal  brains  for  purposes  of  comparison,  it  may  easily  be  seen 
that  some  of  the  lesser  lights  who  are  quoted  as  authorities  are 
quite  likely  to  be  open  to  impeachment  on  similar  grounds. 

Some  of  the  observations  on  the  crime  class  partake  of  the 
nature  of  farce  comedy.  I  recall  a  discussion  of  the  physical 
anomalies  of  the  criminal  by  a  certain  scientific  society,  which 
476 


CHARACTERISTICS    OF    THE   CRIMINAL      477 

strikingly  illustrated  the  point  I  desire  to  make.  The  two  prin- 
cipal papers  of  the  evening  were  read  respectively  by  the  head 
of  a  well-known  detective  bureau  and  a  reformatory  physician 
who  is  justly  celebrated  as  an  authority.  Among  other  stigmata 
of  degeneracy,  anomalous  shapes  of  the  ear  were  thoroughly 
discussed.  The  amusing  feature  of  the  discussion  was  the  fact 
that  the  ears  of  the  celebrated  detective  were  small  and  closely 
set,  to  the  point  of  imperfect  development  and  deformity,  while 
those  of  the  distinguished  medical  gentleman  went  to  the  opposite 
extreme,  and,  if  there  is  anything  in  the  view  that  the  criminal 
ear  is  prominent,  large,  and  obtrusive,  were  suggestive,  to  say 
the  least.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  comparison  of  the  ears 
of  the  two  essayists  by  the  observing  ones  did  not  add  any  special 
weight  to  the  various  arguments  that  were  adduced  regarding 
the  stigmata  of  degeneracy. 

Some  of  the  amusing  features  of  the  scientific  study  of  crimi- 
nal anthropology  appear  to  suggest  themselves  to  the  subject  of 
study  himself.  A  notorious  murderer,  who  was  by  no  means  a 
bad-looking  specimen  of  humanity,  and  was  certainly  something 
of  a  physiognomist,  protested  against  an  anthropometric  ex- 
amination because  he  had  been  seriously  affronted  by  a  gentle- 
man who  had  examined  him  the  previous  day.  Quoth  the  mur- 
derer :  "  There  was  a  fellow  here  yesterday  that  monkeyed 
with  my  head  and  wrote  down  some  figures,  and  said  he  was  a 
criminal  ant'ropologist.  I  asked  him  what  he  made  out  of  me, 
and  he  said  I  was  a  degenerate.  You'd  ought  'a  seen  that  fellow. 
He  had  a  head  like  a  pumpkin.  If  I  had  a  mug  like  his,  I'd  want 
to  hang." 

The  comparative  study  of  the  criminal  and  normal  man  is 
one  of  the  most  difficult  problems  in  science.  So  difficult  is  it 
that  it  is  almost  impossible  to  do  the  subject  justice,  and  fallacies 
and  inaccuracies  of  observations  are  not  to  be  wondered  at.  The 
studies  of  the  criminal  class  are  made  almost  entirely  upon 
inmates  of  correctional  institutions.  These  are  the  dregs  of  the 
crime  class.  They  are  the  individuals  who  have  chanced  to  be 
caught.  They  are  but  a  small  proportion  of  the  total  number 
of  criminals.    The  proportion  of  individuals  who  are  detected  in 


478  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

crime  is  extremely  small,  as  compared  with  the  sum  total  of  the 
criminal  acts  committed.  The  number  of  arrests  for  crime  is 
also  small  compared  with  the  number  of  crimes  that  are  actually 
known  to  be  committed,  to  say  nothing  of  the  crimes  which  are 
not  detected,  or,  if  detected,  not  reported.  The  proportion  of 
arrested  individuals  who  are  tried  and  sentenced  is  small,  as 
compared  with  the  total  number  arrested,  leaving  out  of  con- 
sideration the  sum  total  of  crimes  committed. 

The  foregoing  statements  are  easily  verified  statistically.  It 
has  been  estimated  that  the  proportion  of  commitments  to  arrests 
is,  in  general,  about  one  per  cent.  It  will  thus  be  seen  that  the 
number  of  persons  available  for  study  is  very  small,  compared 
with  the  total  number  of  criminals. 

Comparison  of  the  criminal  with  normal  man  is  a  very  diffi- 
cult matter.  The  criminal  type  is  paralleled  by  non-criminal 
degenerates.  Physical  and  psychic  anomalies  of  varying  degrees 
are  found  in  individuals  who,  for  courtesy's  sake,  are  styled 
normal.  Further,  there  is  no  arbitrary  standard  for  the  normal 
man.  A  comparison  of  a  thousand  convicts  with  a  thousand 
individuals  from  the  ordinary  walks  of  life,  who  are  supposed 
to  be  non-criminal,  would  be  more  or  less  unfair,  although  such 
comparison  is  the  best  that  can  be  done  in  obtaining  data.  The 
thousand  convicts  would  comprise  individuals  whose  moral  status 
has  been  established  arbitrarily  by  law.  The  thousand  alleged 
normal  individuals  would  comprise  a  certain  number  of  persons 
who,  although  degenerates,  are  non-criminal,  either  because 
their  degeneracy  is  not  sufficiently  marked  to  impel  them  to 
crime,  or  because  their  environments  have  been  such  that  they 
have  never  been  exposed  to  necessity  or  temptation  to  crime. 
Among  them  would  also  be  a  large  number  of  individuals  who 
habitually  or  occasionally  commit  crimes,  which,  if  detected, 
would  lay  them  liable  to  arrest  and  punishment.  The  so-called 
normal  group  would  also  comprise  individuals  who,  although 
not  yet  criminals,  will  become  so  sooner  or  later. 

As  an  illustration  of  the  fallacy  of  some  of  the  observations 
upon  the  relation  of  degeneracy  to  social  disease,  I  will  allude  to 
the  work  of  Pauline  Tarnowsky  and  others  in  the  study  of  the 


CHARACTERISTICS   OF   THE   CRIMINAL      .^9 

sodal  erSL    These  writers  hare  c. —  '-^i  -  "—'--'  -  — ---  -f 

pfosliliitcs  widi  siqiposedhr  nonnz^L 

that  d^eneracT  is  die  prime  facfecir 

of  diese  dbserrzikms  nmst  be  <fi&: 

large  majoritr  of  Enropean  pnist: 

carijr  age ;  so  carhr,  in  tact,  that  dc . 

Htde  to  do  widi  die  ykrtion  of 

same  comfitiaas  k  would  make  '-' 

the  cMd  were  degenerate  or  not,  it 

ttwuttji.    Ignorance  and  want,  oooii: 

phcre  surroundn^  sadi  dnldrcn. 

absence  of  d^cneracr.    It  must  Ik  i  tttat.  wbde  in  a 

good  dnriromnart:  the  d^cnerafe  c:  -beiagapalp 

is  fiafale  to  take  to  proslilnlion  aisc  _'  -rrrsal  dnU 

csc^e,  the  cfaiU  wbo  is  bom  normal 

environment,  and  kqit  tfaere  mtf  adcL 

as  Hodj  to  adopt  a  fife  of  crime  or  r 

dnUren  stAjected  to  the  same  cnrir 

women  to  a  fife  of  shanir  after  otiier  z.' 

been  offered  tiiern  has  been  quoted  as  i 

and  their  mtnral  tendency  to  ptortitnt: 

aBow  some  weight  to  this  argnraeai^  t 

that  an  acquired  taste  for  such  a  If: 

primarihr  was  not  a  degenerate  may 

di^gii^  her  back  to  her  ionner  fife  : 

eranr.     There  is  too  great   a   teodesxy    : :    .r^ .  - 

degenerMTv  oat  of  oonsideratioa. 

In  the  stndr  of  die  criminal  class  from  :  ^  -^ 

point,  the  factor  of  sccondarj  defrt'  -  'r— :-l-i^  rtrzeria*  con- 
sideration. Manr  of  the  fibjatcil  ritfe?  of  the  crirr±--al 
are  incident  to  the  fife  he  leads,  znd  nssirr  -f  ±c  --e-:rTr£±i: 
phpnnninia  diat  he  presents  are,  so  to  speak,  rcrrr-i-r:  re  -e-rrrsf? 
These  conditions  are  a  very  fcrzrddsK-i  5-rcroc  :f  h.~,i.-j  bz  zrirrf- 
nal  antfaropologr. 

After  making  doe  alknraact  f cr  in?-rE--f-ert  fan.  rrrr— 
obscrrations.  and  orcr-enrfKssiasrr:,  rri«e   titz   ydZ.  ■-•^^■■— .-•--   :   i: 
die  bom  criminal  is  alwavs.  and  di«e  cccn^t r::iil  ,— lrur_i^  m-.; 


48o  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

a  defective,  and,  like  all  other  defectives,  presents  mental  and 
physical  aberrations  that  stamp  him  as  abnormal.  Criminal 
anthropology  has  not  yet  arrived  at  the  point  where  arbitrary 
diagnoses  or  classifications  of  criminal  types  can  be  justified  by 
the  psychic  and  physical  peculiarities  of  the  criminal.  In  brief, 
the  most  that  we  have  been  able  to  do  thus  far  is  to  stamp 
criminals  as  the  van-guard  of  our  vast  army  of  degenerates,  and 
to  show  that  they  are  characterized  by  the  psychic  and  physical 
anomalies  of  their  congeners.  The  cranial  and  cerebral  char- 
acteristics of  the  criminal,  and  some  of  the  results  of  atavism, 
have  been  expatiated  upon  in  previous  chapters. 

PHYSICAL    CHARACTERISTICS   OF   THE    CRIMINAL 

The  muscular  system  of  criminals  is,  upon  the  average, 
marked  by  a  lack  of  tone,  as  might  be  expected  from  the  indolent 
and  debauched  lives  they  lead  outside  of  prison  and  the  unhy- 
gienic conditions  of  prison  life. 

Disproportionate  length  of  arms — an  anthropoidic  pecu- 
liarity— has  been  alleged  to  characterize  criminals.  The  data 
upon  this  point  are,  however,  insufficient.  Defective  chest  de- 
velopment and  stooped  shoulders  are  frequent.  At  Elmira  Re- 
formatory the  greatest  deficiency  has  been  found  to  be  in  the 
respiratory  apparatus.  This  is  also  true  in  my  experience  among 
penitentiary  convicts,  who  have  a  peculiar  tendency  to  pulmonary 
difficulties,  due  to  faulty  development  and  bad  surroundings  in 
prison. 

Vascular  and  cardiac  disease  are  frequent  among  criminals. 
Penta  ^  found  endarteritis  and  atheroma  in  nearly  half  of  a  series 
of  one  hundred  and  eighty-four  convicts.  In  twenty  of  them 
there  was  aortic  insufficiency.  The  intimate  association  of  cardiac 
disease  and  mental  derangement  is  well  known.  Cardiac  disease 
occurs  with  especial  frequency  in  the  insane. 

Penta  has  also  studied  the  fingers  and  toes  of  five  hundred 
criminals,  and  finds  a  deficiency  in  the  size  and  number  of  toes 
quite  frequent  among  them,  while  very  rare  among  ordinary 

'  Nuove  Richerche  sui  rei  contro  il  buon  costume.  Arch,  di  Psichia- 
tria,  1888. 


CHARACTERISTICS    OF   THE    CRIMINAL      481 

men.  He  has  also  observed  that  prehensile  toes,  marked  by  a 
wide  space  between  the  great  toe  and  the  second  toe,  is  a  con- 
dition quite  common  among  criminals ;  also  a  webbed  condition 
of  the  toes  ;  an  approximation  to  the  toeless  feet  of  some  savages. 
He  found  the  little  toe  rudimentary  in  many  cases,  showing  a 
tendency  towards  the  four-toed  animal  foot.  The  most  common 
of  all  aberrations  was  the  webbed  toes.  The  ambidexterity  fre- 
quently noted  in  criminals  is  additional  evidence  along  the  same 
line.  Where  relative  obtundity  of  general  and  special  sensibility 
is  not,  so  to  speak,  an  occupation  neurosis  in  criminals  and  other 
degenerates,  atavism  may  serve  to  explain  it. 

Ellis  claims  that  sexual  anomalies  are  frequent  in  both  male 
and  female  prisoners.  This  accords  with  my  experience,  and 
harmonizes  with  the  degeneracy  view  of  crime.  Undescended 
testis  and  disproportionate  size  of  the  penis  have  been  found  to 
be  very  frequent  both  in  idiots  and  criminals.  I  have  noted 
hypospadias  among  criminals  very  frequently.  True  sexual  per- 
version and  inversion,  with  attendant  femininity  of  type  in  the 
male  and  masculinity  in  the  female,  is  frequent  among  them,  as 
prison  reports  show.  I  have  seen  several  cases  of  mammary 
enlargement  and  milk  secretion  in  male  criminals. 

Ottolenghi  claims  that  sexual  offenders  present  frequent 
genital  anomalies,  a  preponderance  of  blonde  hair,  malformed 
ears,  bichromatism  of  the  iris,  blue  eyes,  twisted  noses,  facial 
asymmetry,  large  lower  jaws,  and  neuroses,  especially  epilepsy. 

So  far  as  my  observations  go,  the  various  American  State 
prisons  present  little  difference  in  the  percentage  of  physical 
defects  among  their  inmates.  In  the  Wisconsin  State  Prison  the 
record  is  as  follows : 

Per  cent. 

Percentage  of  chronic  diseases  of  all  kinds 33^/3 

Impaired  hearing  27.2 

Impaired  vision    ii-3 

Loss  of  hands  or  feet  10 

Hernia   2.0 

In  the  Ohio  State  Prison,  seventy  per  cent,  of  the  convicts 
have  had  syphilis. 

31 


482  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

The  criminal  ear  has  been  accorded  special  prominence  in 
the  list  of  physical  anomalies  of  criminals.  That  the  conforma- 
tion of  the  ear  is,  to  a  certain  degree,  a  criterion  of  character  is 
an  old  lay  belief  which  modern  criminal  anthropology  has  tended 
to  confirm.  Small  and  close-set  ears  are  popularly  believed  to 
be  indicative  of  miserliness  and  a  lack  of  generous  impulses, 
whilst  large,  symmetrically  formed  ears  indicate  generosity. 
This  popular  notion  is,  to  a  certain  extent,  well  founded.  The 
undeveloped  ear  is  often  associated  with  a  generally  defective 
physique,  and  a  mentality  that  does  not  usually  harbor  a  humane 
and  generous  spirit,  but  is  more  likely  to  be  associated  with  a 
mean  and  selfish  disposition. 

Both  extremes  in  the  size  of  the  ear  have  been  noted  to  be 
prevalent  in  criminals  and  in  defectives  in  general.  Inordinately 
long  and  wide  ears  and  the  "  handle-shaped"  ear  described  by 
Lombroso  are  dwelt  upon  by  various  writers  as  frequent  and 
characteristic  in  criminals.  Over  forty  years  ago,  Laycock  ^ 
pointed  out  the  importance  of  aural  anomalies  as  a  criterion  of 
degeneracy. 

Frigerio  has  devoted  a  monograph  to  the  description  of  the 
ears  of  the  criminal  and  insane.'  He  notes  certain  atavistic 
phenomena  and  variations  in  the  circulation  of  the  ear  as  of 
especial  importance.  Thus  the  Darwinian  tubercle — a  pointed 
prominence  on  the  external  margin  of  the  ear — is  often  found  in 
criminals  and  the  insane.  A  generally  pointed  ear — the  "  Satanic 
ear" — is  also  frequent.  A  doubling  or  forking  of  the  root  of  the 
helix  is  frequent  in  children,  apes,  criminals,  and  the  insane. 
The  fork  of  the  helix,  the  entire  helix,  lobule,  and  antitragus  are 
often  absent. 

Frere  and  Segla's  examined  twelve  hundred  subjects, — in- 
sane, epileptic,  idiotic,  and  healthy, — and  found  aural  anomalies 
with  especial  frequency  among  epileptics  and  idiots,  and  much 
more  frequent  among  the  insane  than  in  normal  subjects.* 

'  Lectures  on  Physiognomical  Diagnosis,  Medical  Times,  1862. 
*L'Oreille  Externe.     fitude  D' Anthropologic  Criminelle.     Paris,  1888. 
*  Contrib.  a  I'fitude  de  quelques  Varietes  Morphologiques  de  I'Oreille 
Humaine,  Revue  d'Anthropologie,  Avril,  1886. 


CHARACTERISTICS    OF    THE    CRIMINAL      483 

The  British  Commission  for  the  investigation  of  the  develop- 
ment and  condition  of  brain-function  in  school-children  found 
aural  development  defective  in  most  cases  of  nerve-defect  and 
mental  weakness.^ 

The  power  of  movement  of  the  ear  is  said  to  be  frequent  in 
criminals,  and  a  sign  of  atavism.  It  occurs  not  infrequently, 
however,  in  otherwise  normal  persons,  usually,  however,  in  those 
of  more  or  less  neurotic  temperament.  It  is  sometimes  in- 
dicative of  excellent  muscle  command,  and  in  persons  whose 
volitional  muscle  control  is  good  the  power  of  movement  of  the 
muscles  of  the  ear  and  of  the  platysma  myoides  may  be  success- 
fully cultivated.  Those  who  possess  this  power  are  inherently 
endowed  with  great  athletic  possibilities.  Atavistic  though  the 
phenomenon  may  be,  it  shows  a  general  approximation  to  the 
superior  type  of  muscle  possessed  by  the  savage,  which  civiliza- 
tion has  all  but  destroyed.  The  savage  has  not,  it  is  true,  great 
muscular  strength,  on  the  average,  but  he  has  muscular  endur- 
ance, cat-like  agility,  and  better  muscle  control  than  the  average 
civilized  man  who  is  not  specially  trained  in  athletics. 

The  form  of  the  nose,  color  of  the  skin,  and  peculiarities  of 
the  hair  of  criminals  have  received  considerable  attention,  the 
labors  of  some  scientists  in  these  directions  suggesting  that  the 
mountain  of  science  sometimes  labors  and  brings  forth  a  mouse. 
Possibly  future  parturitions  may  develop  more  of  importance, 
but  it  is  well  to  remember  that  even  scientists  are  not  immune 
from  monomania. 

The  pallor  of  the  skin  of  criminals  is  in  keeping  with  their 
defective  physique  and  unhygienic  lives,  both  in  and  out  of 
prison. 

Extremes  of  hairy  development  should  naturally  be  expected 
among  degenerates.  Sexual  criminals  among  males  are  often 
effeminate  and  present  a  sparsity  of  beard  and  body  hair. 
Female  criminals  are,  on  the  average,  of  a  masculine  type,  and 
excessive  hairy  development  is  frequent  among  them.  It  is 
noticeable  that  many  cases  of  extreme  sexuality  among  both 

'  Vide  The  Criminal,  Havelock  Ellis. 


484  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

male  and  female  criminals  and  among  the  insane  are  frequently 
associated  with  great  development  of  the  hair. 

The  brunette  and  medium  types  of  complexion  are  most 
often  observed  in  American  prisons,  but  it  would  hardly  be 
safe  to  say  that  the  paucity  of  blondes  is  greater  than  among  a 
similar  number  of  non-criminal  individuals.  The  statistics  of 
London  criminals  show  red  hair  to  be  rare  among  them.  The 
same  is  true  of  any  promiscuous  gathering  of  people. 

Anomalies  of  the  palate,  teeth,  and  jaws  are  found  with  great 
frequency  among  defectives,  and  are  among  the  most  valuable 
of  the  many  evidences  adduced  as  to  the  degeneracy  of  the 
insane,  idiot,  criminal,  and  pauper  classes.  Havelock  Ellis " 
suggests  that,  inasmuch  as  atavistic  dental  anomalies — such  as 
the  fourth  molar,  characteristic  of  the  platyrhine  apes — are 
occasionally  found  in  man,  it  would  be  interesting  to  know  in 
what  proportion  such  anomalies  occur  among  criminals.  De- 
formities of  the  teeth  and  palate  in  the  defective  classes  have 
received  much  attention  of  late,  and  have  been  shown  to  occur 
with  extraordinary  frequency.'^ 

Prognathism  and  heaviness  of  the  jaws  has  been  noted  as  a 
criminal  characteristic.  As  Ellis  remarks,  however,  this  point 
demands  further  and  more  careful  study,  giving  due  weight  to 
racial  characteristics,  to  the  extent  of  prognathism  among  the 
general  population  and  to  uniformity  of  mensuration  methods. 
That  the  lower  jaw  is  disproportionately  developed  in  persons 
guilty  of  crimes  of  violence  is  a  common  observation,  and  is  a 
natural  result  of  the  association  of  a  well-developed,  massive, 
square  jaw,  with  self-assertiveness,  combativeness,  and  deter- 
mination,— qualities  by  no  means  necessarily  criminal,  and  often 
admirable.  The  Celtic  type  is  an  illustration.  When  these 
qualities  exist  in  moral  and  mental  defects,  they  are  likely  to 
determine  the  character  of  the  crimes  committed.  It  has  been 
shown  that,  while  the  average  weight  of  the  Parisian  criminal 
skull,  taken  as  a  whole,  is  less  than  that  of  the  average  citizen, 

'The  Criminal. 

^  Vide  E.   S.  Talbot,  Degeneracy  of  the  Jaws. 


CHARACTERISTICS    OF    THE    CRIMINAL      485 

the  weight  of  the  murderer's  jaw  as  compared  with  that  of  the 
average  man's  is  as  90  to  84. 

A  number  of  cranial  stigmata  of  degeneracy  are  Hkely  to 
be  found  in  the  same  criminal  subject.  A  retreating  frontal 
bone,  huge  supra-orbital  bosses,  defective  occipital  development, 
a  relatively  large  inferior  occipital  plane,  and  enormous  occipital 
ridges  and  tuberosities  are  often  associated. 

Roussel  Marro  has  laid  some  stress  upon  the  relative  promi- 
nence of  the  zygoma  in  criminals.  The  association  of  high  cheek 
bones  with  a  passionate  temperament  has  been  noted  by  others. 
It  is  a  common  observation  that  women  with  high  cheek  bones 
and  pointed  chins  are  often  sexually  inordinately  passionate,  and, 
in  addition,  likely  to  be  viragos. 

The  retreating  chin  has  been  observed  to  indicate  weakness 
and  vacillation  of  character,  and  is  often  noted  in  criminals, 
especially  in  petty  criminals  and  sexual  criminals.  The  cleft 
chin  is  usually  associated  with  powerful  sexual  proclivities. 

It  will  be  noticed  that,  in  general,  the  form  of  the  jaw  of  the 
criminal  is  suggestive  of  the  same  qualities  as  in  non-criminals. 
Crime  is  an  occupation,  the  various  branches  of  which  require 
different  attributes.  In  one,  determination  is  demanded,  in 
another,  a  weakling  may  succeed.  Just  as  in  every-day  life  the 
man  with  the  resolute  jaw  commands,  so  in  the  Under  World 
we  find  the  same  type  of  man  king  among  outcasts,  and  per- 
petrating crimes  requiring  boldness  and  desperate  nerve.  The 
Celtic  type  of  jaw  is  obtrusive,  bold  in  outline,  and  massive. 
Wherever  we  find  the  Irishman,  we  find  him  ruling,  or  trying 
to  rule.  He  is  as  positive  for  good  as  he  is  for  bad,  but, 
strange  to  say,  Ireland  is  the  least  criminal  country  of  Eu- 
rope, and  the  determination  of  the  Celtic  race  has  made  for 
progress  the  world  over.  The  Irish  in  America  furnish  a 
much  larger  proportion  of  criminals  than  they  do  in  their  own 
country. 

Pauline  Tamowsky  has  made  a  very  thorough  study  of  the 
physical  defects  of  the  degenerate  classes.  Her  most  important 
series  of  observations  was  based  upon  a  comparative  study  of 
one  hundred  and  fifty  prostitutes,  one  hundred  female  thieves, 


486  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

one  hundred  illiterate  peasant  women,  and  fifty  women  from  the 
higher  schools  of  St.  Petersburg.^ 

The  parentage  of  the  degenerates  showed  82.66  per  cent,  of 
alcoholism,  forty-four  per  cent,  of  phthisis,  six  per  cent,  of  epi- 
lepsy, three  per  cent,  of  insanity,  ten  per  cent,  of  apoplexy,  and 
four  per  cent,  of  syphilis. 

It  is  to  be  noted  that  the  degenerates  were  selected  in  such 
a  manner  as  to  make  the  comparison  somewhat  fallacious ;  this 
aside  from  the  fact  that  the  series  was  too  limited  to  admit  of 
arbitrary  conclusions.  The  prostitutes  were  of  the  registered 
class  and  found  in  public  hospitals.  They  were  consequently  not 
necessarily  a  criterion  of  prostitutes  in  general,  even  in  Russia. 
The  female  thieves  were  rccidivistes.  It  will  be  seen,  therefore, 
that  Dr.  Tarnowsky  dealt  with  the  very  dregs  of  both  the  prosti- 
tute and  female  thief  class.  Her  work  is,  nevertheless,  an  impor- 
tant addition  to  the  study  of  degeneracy. 

PHYSIOGNOMY 

Is  the  appearance  of  the  criminal  different  from  that  of  other 
individuals?  This  question  has  been  the  subject  of  much  dis- 
cussion. Without  claiming  that  the  criminal  presents  character- 
istics that  are  pathognomonic  of  his  profession,  or  which  would 
enable  even  the  expert  to  pick  him  out  on  sight,  I  do  not  hesitate 
to  express  my  belief  that  he  presents,  in  general,  characteristics 
of  expression  that  distinguish  him  from  the  average  of  men. 
His  heredity  in  many  cases,  his  environment,  both  in  confine- 
ment and  out  of  it,  in  all  cases,  and  the  exigencies  of  his 
occupation  are  such  as  must  necessarily  leave  their  impress 
upon  him. 

Vocational  influences  distinguish  men  in  other  walks  of  life, 
and  should  operate  with  especial  force  upon  the  criminal.  The 
lawyer,  the  doctor,  the  clergyman,  the  race-horse  man,  the  gam- 
bler, the  man  of  affairs,  and  the  farmer,  all  present  characteris- 
tics that  often  enable  the  discerning  one  to  pick  them  out  of  a 
crowd,  notwithstanding  that  their  respective  environments  have 

*  fitude  Anthropometrique  sur  les  Prostitutes  et  les  Voleuses. 


CHARACTERISTICS    OF   THE    CRIMINAL      487 

much  more  in  common  than  have  those  of  the  criminal  and  of 
the  normal  man. 

At  least  a  suggestion  of  this  view  underlies  the  opinion  of 
Tarde,"  who  believes  that  all  of  the  psychic  and  physical  char- 
acteristics of  the  criminal  may  be  explained  by  his  profession. 
He  claims  that  if  lawyers,  doctors,  priests,  and  merchants  were 
examined  anthropometrically,  each  class  would  be  found  to 
present  a  special  preponderance  of  certain  peculiarities,  mental 
or  physical,  which  would  distinguish  them  from  other  classes 
and  professions. 

The  experienced  "  thief-catcher"  knows  the  ear-marks  of 
criminality  fairly  well,  and,  while  the  thief  presents  no  char- 
acteristics which,  taken  alone,  would  enable  one  to  make  a 
positive  diagnosis,  the  habitue  of  prisons  nevertheless  has  a 
physiognomy  and  air  that  are  very  embarrassing  to  him,  and 
very  useful  to  the  minions  of  the  law  who  seek  him.  The  con- 
ditions to  which  the  confirmed  "  jail-bird"  is  exposed  are  such 
as  tend  to  stamp  him  with  the  brand  of  Ishmael's  own. 
Primarily,  he  is  a  hunted  animal ;  secondarily,  as  a  prisoner,  he 
is,  on  the  average,  a  hapless  being,  who  is  removed  from  the 
ordinary  influences  of  society.  Unconscious  imitation  of  those 
about  him,  dogged  submission  to  authority,  suppressed  resent- 
ment against  society,  contact  with  minds  as  brutish  or  more 
brutish  than  his  own,  rigid  discipline,  and  a  dead  monotony  of 
stone  walls  and  whitewash  tend  to  reduce  criminals  to  a  common 
level  that  makes  an  impression  upon  their  physiognomy  which  is 
easier  to  recognize  than  to  describe.  Experienced  wardens  have 
claimed  to  be  able  to  pick  out  the  various  kinds  of  malefactors 
from  their  appearance  alone. 

Unconscious  imitation  and  thought  habit — or  the  lack  of  it — 
are  more  powerful  factors  in  moulding  criminal  physiognomy 
than  is  ordinarily  believed.  It  is  a  matter  of  common  observa- 
tion that  husband  and  wife  grow  to  resemble  each  other.  The 
same  is  true  of  many  persons  who  are  habitually  and  intimately 
associated,  irrespective  of  the  sexual  element.     Why  should  we 

•La  Criminologie,  G.  Tarde,  Revue  D'AnthropoIogie,  September,  1888. 


488  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

not  expect  criminals  who  are  herded  together  for  a  long  period 
to  acquire  features  of  resemblance,  especially  when  we  consider 
the  primary  similarity  of  typic  criminals? 

It  has  been  said  that  a  clipped  head,  a  clean  shave,  and  prison 
garb  level  distinctions  between  convicts.  "  They  all  look  alike," 
said  one  skeptic  as  to  criminal  anthropology,  as  he  observed  a 
chain  gang.  To  be  sure,  they  do  look  alike  to  the  casual  ob- 
server, but  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  majority  of  them 
were  of  the  same  class  before  they  entered  the  chain  gang.  Close 
inspection  of  the  sporadic  criminal  when  he  first  enters  the 
prison  shows  a  physiognomy  different  from  the  hardened  old- 
timer.  In  time  the  novice  may  become  like  those  about  him ; 
the  weaker  vessels  among  "  occasionals"  succumb  to  contagion 
sooner  or  later. 

The  murderer,  as  a  rule,  presents  a  different  appearance  from 
other  criminals.  This  does  not,  of  course,  apply  to  the  "  criminal 
murderer,"  who  belongs  primarily  to  the  crime  class.  In  time, 
however,  the  murderer  may  become  as  those  about  him,  espe- 
cially if  young  when  committed. 

Much  of  the  work  of  the  old  physiognomists  was  labor  thrown 
away,  but  not  a  little  of  it  was  valuable  and  worthy  of  more 
attention  than  it  has  ever  received  at  the  hands  of  scientists. 
That  conformation  and  expression  of  face  are  moulded  by,  and 
often  an  index  of,  mental  operations  is  beyond  dispute.  It  is 
singular  that  those  who  scout  at  physiognomic  study  should 
forget  the  various  expressions  characteristic  of  joy,  grief,  pain, 
anger,  fright,  amusement,  ridicule,  scorn,  attention,  indifference, 
contempt,  horror,  amazement,  and  curiosity,  so  familiar  to  every 
one  and  so  easily  recognizable  by  the  least-trained  observer. 
That  the  character  of  the  emotions  to  which  one  is  habitually 
subjected  permanently  modifies  facial  expression  to  a  certain 
degree  is  in  no  wise  surprising.  While  no  special,  nor  even 
general,  rules  could  be  formulated  upon  this  point,  individuals 
are  frequently  met  with  in  whom  the  stamp  of  inanity,  craftiness, 
insincerity,  ferocity,  sensuality,  cowardice,  determination,  or 
vanity  is  indelibly  impressed  upon  the  countenance.  Why  should 
the  habitual  criminal  be  an  exception  to  the  general  rule  as 


CHARACTERISTICS    OF   THE    CRIMINAL      489 

regards  physiognomy,  and  how  could  he  fail  to  present  especially 
striking  features  because  of  the  peculiar  conditions  to  which  he 
is  subjected? 

If  the  study  of  physiognomy  is  considered  in  certain  quarters 
as  so  much  rubbish,  it  is  because  so  little  attention  has  been 
directed  to  it  and  familiar  facts  are  ignored.  The  relation  of 
the  large  nose  to  determination  of  character ;  of  closely  set  eyes 
to  craftiness ;  of  deeply  set  eyes  to  viciousness ;  of  thin  lips  to 
frigidity,  selfishness,  and  illiberality ;  of  thick  lips  and  a  cleft 
chin  to  sensuality,  and  of  strong  facial  lines  to  thought  con- 
centration, are  almost  too  familiar  to  require  mention.  The 
smooth  face  of  youth  and  beauty  yields  to  care  and  study ;  then 
come  the  lines. 

The  hardened  criminal  shows  the  pallor  due  to  prison  life, 
and  to  debauchery  outside  of  prison.  His  eyes  are  restless,  and 
he  rarely  looks  at  one  squarely.  He  has  a  brutish,  sullen,  tough, 
hang-dog  expression  that  is  his  most  important  physiognomic 
characteristic.  He  has,  in  general,  the  air  of  a  hunted  animal. 
His  ears  are  usually  large  and  prominent,  and  often  misshapen. 
His  jaw  varies  in  form  from  the  extreme  of  atavism — present- 
ing the  heavy  carnivorous  type — to  the  degenerate  receding  form. 
His  face  is  much  more  asymmetric  than  that  of  the  normal  man. 
The  sexual  criminal  may  present  hermaphroditic  characters, 
with  femininity  of  physique  and  carriage.  The  typic  female 
criminal  is  usually  masculine  of  feature. 

The  celebrated  Vidocq  was  wont  to  say,  "  I  do  not  need  to 
see  the  whole  of  a  criminal's  face  in  order  to  recognize  him  as 
such.    It  is  enough  for  me  to  catch  his  eye." 

In  murderers  who  are  not  adjudged  insane  there  is  often  a 
wild,  staring,  or  glittering  expression  of  the  eyes,  that  suggests 
their  kinship  with  the  unequivocally  insane. 

Lombroso  ^°  says  that  the  eyes  of  assassins  are  suggestive  of 
those  of  the  felidce  when  about  to  spring.  The  assassin  as  he 
describes  him,  however,  is  a  European  product,  and  not  a  fair 
criterion  of  murderers  in  general. 

"L'Homme  Criminel. 


490  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

The  criminal  in  general  is  unhandsome,  but,  again,  condi- 
tions in  America  differ  from  those  prevailing  in  Europe.  A 
comparison  of  Lombroso's  types  with  those  presented  in  this 
volume  illustrates  this  point.  Physical  beauty  is  not  infrequent 
among  American  criminals.  As  I  have  elsewhere  stated,  the 
criminal  class  of  this  country  is  not  yet  crystallized  into  an 
entity  so  definite  as  that  of  Europe. 

It  is  my  belief  that  a  more  careful  study  of  physiognomy 
might  prove  of  great  value  in  criminology  and  criminal  anthro- 
pology. It  is  possible  that  my  friend,  Captain  Evans,  of  the 
Chicago  Bureau  of  Identification,  has  just  grounds  for  his  state- 
ment that  he  takes  "  little  stock  in  faces."  Much  depends  upon 
whether  his  attitude  is  the  result  of  careful  physiognomic  study 
and  comparison,  or  simply  an  off-hand  conclusion  incidentally 
arrived  at  in  the  course  of  his  daily  work. 

MOTOR   ACTIVITY    AND   POWER 

Many  writers  have  laid  especial  stress  upon  the  extraordi- 
nary, ape-like  agility  of  criminals.  This  is  an  atavistic  phe- 
nomenon which,  in  the  habitual  criminal,  reaches  a  high  state 
of  cultivation  by  virtue  of  the  exigencies  of  his  occupation  and 
the  necessity  of  escaping  from  dangerous  situations.  This  agility 
is  all  the  more  striking  from  the  fact  that  it  is  held  in  reserve 
to  meet  emergencies.  The  criminal  is,  under  ordinary  conditions, 
relatively  sluggish  and  indolent.  The  expression  "  cat-like"  fits 
him  exceedingly  well.  The  feline  species  is  not  given  to  exertion 
save  as  necessity  demands.  The  extraordinary  agility  of  the 
criminal  exhibited  on  occasion  is  closely  associated  with  his 
emotional  instability.  Ellis  "  has  called  especial  attention  to  the 
fact  that  the  criminal  lacks  vigor.  He  says,  "  He  is  incapable 
of  prolonged  or  sustained  exertion,  and  is  exhausted  by  an 
amount  of  work  which  would  be  easily  accomplished  by  an 
ordinary  workman.  He  is  essentially  idle.  The  whole  art  of 
crime  lies  in  the  endeavor  to  avoid  the  necessity  of  labor.    This 

"  Op.  cit. 


CHARACTERISTICS    OF    THE    CRIMINAL      491 

lack  of  vigor  of  the  criminal  is  chiefly  exhibited  in  his  incapacity 
for  physical  toil." 

The  agility  of  the  criminal  has  been  by  some  attributed  to 
his  disproportionate  length  of  arm.  The  observations  upon  this 
point  having  been  made  in  Europe  only,  their  bearing  upon  the 
physique  of  the  American  criminal  is  unknown. 

Left-handedness  has  been  found  to  be  very  frequent  among 
criminals.  The  same  is  true  of  ambidexterity.  A  tendency  to 
left-handedness  is  also  extremely  prevalent  among  children, 
savages,  and  idiots.     The  connection  is  obvious. 

Experiments  with  the  dynamometer  appear  to  show  a  rela- 
tively greater  strength  in  the  left  hands  of  criminals  as  compared 
with  normal  individuals. 

Ottolenghi  ^^  has  measured,  according  to  the  Bertillon  sys- 
tem, the  hands,  middle  fingers,  and  feet  of  a  series  of  criminals 
and  normal  persons.  He  found  that  the  left  hand  was  the  longer 
in  a  much  larger  proportion  of  criminals  than  in  normal  indi- 
viduals. A  similar  disparity  was  found  in  the  foot.  These 
observations  are  open  to  impeachment,  as  the  series  comprised 
only  one  hundred  and  fifty  examinations,  and  among  them  were 
twice  as  many  criminals  as  normal  individuals. 

Anomalies  of  the  tendon  reflex  of  the  knee  are  claimed  by 
Lombroso  to  be  very  frequent  in  criminals.  He  claims  that 
feeble  tendon  reflexes  are  very  common  among  thieves,  and  that 
the  reflex  is  exaggerated  in  a  large  proportion  of  sexual 
offenders. 

PHYSICAL   SENSIBILITY 

That  the  typic  criminal,  as  found  in  our  prisons,  is  relatively 
insensitive  to  pain  is  a  matter  of  common  observation.  This 
insensibility  is  a  distinctly  atavistic  phenomenon,  and  is  normal 
in  savages  and  the  lower  animals,  although  it  is  not  so  marked 
in  primitive  races  as  some  suppose.  The  reasons  for  this  state- 
ment will  appear  later, 

Benedikt  pointed  out  some  years  ago  the  "  disvulnerability" 


"  II  Mancinismo  Anatomico  nei  Criminali,  Arch,  di  Psichiatria,  1889, 
No.  6. 


492  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

or  rapid  recovery  from  wounds  of  criminals.  Ellis  has  verified 
this  by  a  series  of  inquiries  of  prison  officials.  The  rapid  healing 
of  wounds  in  most  primitive  races  is  well  known.  A  case  is 
related  of  a  Maori  who  had  been  speared  completely  through 
the  upper  part  of  the  chest  and  lung  with  an  ironshod  pole, 
thicker  than  the  wrist,  walking  fifteen^  miles  across  the  moun- 
tains a  week  later,  the  wound  being  healed.  Among  the  Samoan 
Islanders,  whose  kinship  with  the  Maoris  is  well-recognized,  this 
rapid  healing  of  wounds  does  not  occur.  It  is  a  common  ex- 
perience that  slight  lesions  of  the  skin  are  likely  to  form  chronic 
ulcers,  and  that  pus  is  a  frequent  result  of  clean  operating 
wounds.  An  able  surgeon  of  large  experience  among  the 
Samoans  informed  me  that,  in  spite  of  rigid  asepsis  and  anti- 
sepsis, more  or  less  suppuration  usually  occurs  among  them 
from  wounds  and  injuries.  I  noted  also  that  elephantiasis 
develops  in  a  large  proportion  of  wounds  upon  these  islanders. 

The  prompt  manner  in  which  wounds  heal  in  some  primitive 
peoples  is  especially  striking  to  the  experienced  surgeon.  I 
recall  a  case  that  I  saw  in  Central  America,  of  a  half-breed 
Indian  and  Mexican,  who  was  cut  by  a  machete  in  the  hands  of 
one  of  his  compatriots.  The  blow  severed  the  overlying  muscles 
of  the  back,  the  scapula,  and  several  ribs,  opening  the  pleural 
cavity.  The  wound  was  not  sutured,  but  the  man's  shoulders 
were  drawn  back  and  held  by  a  bandage,  and  the  terrible  wound 
kept  wet  with  sea  water.  Within  ten  days  the  man  was  going 
about  as  though  nothing  had  happened. 

The  relatively  prompt  healing  of  wounds  in  criminals  is  not 
so  noticeable  in  American  institutions  as  in  Europe,  for  reasons 
already  sufficiently  expatiated  upon. 

The  most  minute  investigations  have  been  made  by  various 
observers  in  the  general  and  special  sensibility  of  the  criminal. 
The  eyesight  of  criminals  is  claimed  to  be  superior  to  the  normal. 
This  is  not  borne  out  by  observations  in  American  prisons. 
Color-blindness  has  been  said  by  some  to  be  rare,  and  by  others 
frequent,  among  them.  The  hearing  of  the  criminal  is  claimed 
to  be  less  acute  than  that  of  the  normal  man,  and  he  is  also  said 
to  be  prone  to  disease  of  the  ear.    The  olfactory  and  taste  senses 


CHARACTERISTICS    OF   THE    CRIMINAL      493 

of  the  criminal  are  alleged  to  be  less  developed  than  in  normal 
persons. 

The  vasomotor  reactions  of  the  criminal  to  various  thoughts 
and  emotions  have  been  carefully  studied  by  Lombroso,  who 
concludes  that  they  are  relatively  sluggish.  The  fact  that  crimi- 
nals rarely  blush  at  the  mention  of  their  crimes  is  not  of  any 
great  practical  value,  nor  is  it  difficult  to  explain.  Professors 
of  crime  see  no  immorality  nor  cause  for  shame  in  their  occu- 
pation.   They  have  long  since  lost  all  sensitiveness  to  criticism. 

The  various  observations  upon  the  special  sensibility  of  the 
criminal  are  inconclusive  and  not  sufficiently  extensive  to  v^rarrant 
the  deduction  of  even  generalizations,  although,  as  Ellis  ^^  says, 
"  the  researches  thus  far  made  tend  to  show  physical  insensi- 
bility and  psychic  analgesia  as  the  criminal's  fundamental  char- 
acteristics." 

PRECOCITY 

The  imperfect  moral  and  intellectual  development  of  the 
criminal  is  often  merely  a  perpetuation  of  juvenile  qualities; 
it  is  practically  always  so  in  the  born  criminal.  Even  normal 
children  are  often  wantonly  cruel.  Their  indifference  to  the 
sufferings  of  dumb  animals  is  proverbial.  In  most  instances  this 
cruelty  is  only  seeming,  and  is  due  to  an  incapacity  of  apprecia- 
tion of  the  wrongfulness  of  such  acts,  combined  with  curiosity. 
In  others  the  cruelty  of  the  child  foreshadows  the  future  crimi- 
nal. Many  instances  of  fiendish  murder  will  be  found,  on  in- 
quiry, to  be  consistent  with  the  child-life  characteristics  of  the 
murderer. 

The  apparently  unfeeling  curiosity  of  the  child  sometimes 
foreshadows  a  scientific  bent.  A  well-known  surgeon  of  my 
acquaintance  was  the  horror  of  his  neighbors  as  a  boy,  because 
of  his  penchant  for  dismembering  and  dissecting  insects  and 
various  other  animals.  That  innate  cruelty  was  not  his  inspira- 
tion is  shown  by  the  aversion  he  now  exhibits  towards  crushing 
insects,  or  in  any  way  wantonly  injuring  helpless  animals.     He 


"  Op.  cit. 


494  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

is  not  an  anti-vivisection  crank,  but  believes  in  vivisection  only 
under  proper  restrictions. 

As  the  normal  child  grows  older  and  his  moral  and  intel- 
lectual faculties  develop,  he  acquires  a  proper  appreciation  of  the 
sensibility  and  rights  of  the  lower  animals,  and  becomes  domi- 
nated by  humane  impulses.  Obviously,  the  capacity  for  such 
development  of  a  humane  spirit  varying,  the  result  must  vary. 
In  some  instances  the  brain  of  the  subject  is  absolutely  incapable 
of  originating  a  humane  impulse.  From  this  class  of  moral 
imbeciles  the  wantonly  cruel  murderer  is  evolved. 

The  moral  insensibility  of  some  juvenile  criminals  is  only 
too  familiar.  The  police  of  every  large  city  are  familiar  with 
the  personnel  and  haunts  of  gangs  of  boy  thieves,  who  are 
often  so  young  as  to  make  their  criminality  astonishing.  In 
a  recent  coterie  of  juvenile  criminals  arrested  in  Chicago 
were  four  boys  whose  ages  ranged  from  eight  to  thirteen 
years.  The  so-called  captain  of  the  gang  was  only  eight 
years  of  age.  This  gang  of  boy  thieves  perpetrated  a  large 
number  of  burglaries  that  had  been  attributed  by  the  police  to 
old  and  experienced  hands.  Not  content  with  burglarizing  a 
dozen  or  more  houses  and  stores,  their  ambitions  soared  higher, 
and  they  stole  a  horse.  They  had  in  their  possession  a  large 
and  varied  assortment  of  keys,  which  they  used  in  their  burglar- 
izing operations.  It  so  happened  that  each  of  these  boys  be- 
longed to  a  respectable  family.  Yellow-backed  literature  was 
probably  responsible  for  the  evolution  of  this  gang  of  juvenile 
criminals. 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  cases  of  juvenile  criminality  on 
record  was  that  of  Marie  Schneider,  quoted  by  Havelock  Ellis. ^* 
Marie  was  a  school-girl,  twelve  years  of  age,  who  was  brought 
before  the  Berlin  Criminal  Court  in  1886  for  the  murder  of  a 
little  child  three  and  a  half  years  old.  She  threw  the  child  out 
of  a  window  upon  the  pavement  and  killed  her,  for  the  purpose 
of  robbing  her  of  a  pair  of  ear-rings.  She  was  absolutely  with- 
out remorse  or  sense  of  the  seriousness  of  her  crime,  save  that 

"  The  Criminal. 


CHARACTERISTICS    OF   THE    CRIMINAL      495 

she  knew  it  was  called  murder,  and  that  the  ordinary  punish- 
ment was  hanging,  which  she  would  escape  because  of  her 
youth.  She  was  intelligent  beyond  her  years,  but  was  morally 
an  idiot. 

A  case  recently  occurred  in  New  York  in  which  a  thirteen- 
year-old  girl  was  detected  in  an  attempt  to  poison  her  parents 
for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  their  property.  She  confessed  the 
crime. 

Numerous  instances  are  on  record  of  the  murder  of  children 
by  young  playmates,  both  male  and  female.  Jesse  Pomeroy  is 
the  most  notorious  American  example. 

A  murderer  who  was  hanged  some  years  ago  in  the  Indian 
Territory  was  a  typic  example  of  the  born  criminal.  He  was 
born  of  honest  farming  parents.  He  showed  viciousness  of 
temper  and  lack  of  control  at  a  very  early  age.  His  dominant 
trait  was  a  spirit  of  bravado  and  braggadocio.  He  was  cowardly, 
but  intensely  cruel  and  fond  of  inflicting  pain  on  dumb  animals. 
When  about  ten  years  of  age  he  wrote  doggerel,  boasting  of  his 
wickedness.  He  seemed  to  think  that  crime  was  a  short  cut  to 
fame.    Here  is  a  sample  of  his  verse : 

"  I'll  kill,  I'll  rob,  and  I'll  plunder, 
And  come  out  the  best  way  I  can ; 
Should  I  have  to  go  on  the  gallows, 
I  will  die  like  the  bravest  of  men." 

In  how  far  pernicious  literature  was  responsible  for  this 
boy's  grandiloquent  ideas  of  crime  would  be  difficult  to  say ;  it 
certainly  was  not  responsible  for  his  natural  cruelty  and  vicious- 
ness. When  less  than  twelve  years  of  age  he  tried  to  burn  alive 
a  boy  companion  in  the  woods.  For  this  he  was  reprimanded, 
not  punished.  A  few  weeks  later  he  stabbed  his  best  friend  and 
playmate,  nearly  killing  him.  He  was  arrested  and  fined.  A 
short  time  after  he  was  whipped  by  another  boy  smaller  than 
himself.  He  waylaid  his  vanquisher,  and  knocked  him  senseless 
with  a  stone.  He  became  more  and  more  vicious  as  he  grew 
older,  and  finally  took  to  horse-stealing.    His  crowning  achieve- 


496  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

ment  was  the  murder  and  robbery  of  two  travellers.     For  this 
he  was  hanged. 

INTELLIGENCE 

In  estimating  the  intelligence  of  the  criminal,  as  found  in 
our  penal  institutions,  it  is  necessary  to  take  into  consideration 
the  variations  in  type.  This  is  especially  necessary  in  America, 
where  the  elements  that  make  up  our  criminal  population  are 
more  diverse  than  in  any  country  in  the  world.  Deductions 
drawn  from  observations  in  European  prisons  as  to  the  intelli- 
gence of  their  inmates  would  scarcely  fit  conditions  in  this 
country. 

Crime  has  been  said  to  be  "  ignorance  in  action."  In  view  of 
the  fact  that  a  defective  moral  sense  is  most  likely  to  be  asso- 
ciated with  defective  development  of  the  brain  in  general,  it  is 
not  surprising  that  the  typic  or  born  criminal  should  lack  intelli- 
gence. The  same  conditions  that  mould  him  to  a  life  of  crim- 
inality curtail  his  capacity  for  mental  development,  upon  the  one 
hand,  and,  upon  the  other,  limit  his  opportunities  for  such  de- 
velopment. But  by  no  means  all  criminals  belong  to  this  class. 
We  have  in  this  country  especially,  a  type  of  criminal  whose 
opportunities  during  youth  are  favorable  to  a  certain  degree  of 
intellectual  development  and  the  acquirement  of  more  than  the 
ordinary  amount  of  intelligence.  Even  among  the  waifs  of  our 
streets,  who  have  had  no  opportunity  for  education  save  by 
contact  with  the  world  in  the  battle  for  existence,  criminals 
develop  who  are  possessed  of  extraordinary  intelligence.  The 
more  refined  types  of  criminal,  represented  by  the  counterfeiter, 
the  forger,  and  the  confidence  man,  depend  for  their  very  ex- 
istence upon  a  superior  grade  of  intelligence.  In  their  struggle 
for  existence  it  is  a  case  of  diamond  cut  diamond,  or,  rather,  it 
is  often  the  case  of  the  diamond  of  criminality  cutting  the  glass 
of  average  respectable  intelligence.  The  greatest  criminals  in 
America  to-day  are  men  whose  colossal  schemes  bear  the  stamp 
of  respectability,  yet  whose  moral  attitude  is  as  low  as  that  of 
the  pickpocket.  No  great  crime  was  ever  conceived  and  carried 
to  a  conclusion  by  an  unintelligent  mind. 


CHARACTERISTICS    OF   THE   CRIMINAL      497 

In  the  matter  of  self-preservation  the  widest  variation  is 
noticed  in  the  intelligence  of  criminals.  It  has  been  noted  in 
very  many  instances  that  the  cleverest  of  crimes  has  either  been 
frustrated,  or  its  perpetrator  brought  to  book,  by  some  foolish 
slip  or  inadvertence  which,  in  view  of  the  intelligence  demanded 
by  the  successful  perpetration  of  crime,  seems  ridiculous.  This, 
however,  docs  not  necessarily  argue  a  lack  of  intelligence.  The 
intelligence  of  the  high-grade  criminal  has  already  been  proved 
by  the  conception  and  performance  of  the  given  criminal  act. 
He  falls  down  much  as  persons  of  extraordinary  intelligence  fre- 
quently do  in  the  ordinary  business  aflfairs  of  life.  Even  among 
the  lower  class  of  criminals  a  high  order  of  animal  intelligence  is 
often  noted.  This  is  a  necessary  consequence  of  the  exigencies  of 
the  criminal's  occupation.  He  lives  by  his  wits  and  cunning,  and, 
like  every  hunted  animal,  these  qualities,  so  far  as  his  means  of 
getting  a  livelihood  and  of  escaping  detection  and  punishment  are 
concerned,  develop  more  fully  year  by  year.  Those  who  arbi- 
trarily place  the  intelligence  of  the  criminal  upon  a  low  plane, 
base  their  opinions  entirely  upon  the  study  of  the  criminal  as  he 
is  found  in  penal  institutions.  They  forget,  first,  the  enormous 
disproportion  between  those  who  commit  crimes  and  those  who 
are  punished ;  second,  that  the  more  intelligent  of  the  criminals 
escape,  and  the  less  intelligent  are  caught  and  punished.  There 
are  exceptions,  it  is  true,  but,  on  the  average,  this  statement  will 
hold. 

Roussel  Marro,"  a  most  careful  observer,  was  only  able  to 
detect  marked  deficiency  of  intelligence  in  twenty-one  in  five 
hundred  criminals.  He  has  attempted  to  classify  these  twenty- 
one  cases  as  to  the  proportion  of  individuals  with  a  defective 
intelligence.  He  states  that  murderers  yield  a  large  proportion 
of  defectives.  The  fraudulent  class  showed  no  instances  of 
defective  intelligence.  So  far  as  the  American  murderer  is 
concerned,  his  average  of  intelligence  is  high,  as  might  be  ex- 
pected from  the  fact  that  he  is  a  criminal  by  impulse,  and  very 
often  represents  the  type  of  sporadic  criminality. 

"  I  carrateri  del  delinqucnti,  Turin,  1887. 
32 


498  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

Dr.  Hamilton  D.  Wey,  of  the  Elmira  Reformatory,  is  a  pessi- 
mist regarding  the  inteUigence  of  the  criminal,  as  might  be 
expected  from  the  character  of  the  individuals  who  come  under 
his  observation. 

MORAL    SENSIBILITY 

That  the  born  criminal  and  the  subject  who,  beginning  by 
occasional  criminality,  ends  by  becoming  a  confirmed  criminal 
are  moral  paretics  is  beyond  controversy.  The  morality  of  a 
criminal  act  is  never  questioned  by  the  true  criminal.  His  moral 
centres  have  either  never  developed  or  have  ceased  to  function- 
ate, leaving  him  in  a  condition  of  moral  atrophy, — or  better,  per- 
haps, moral  anesthesia.  The  true  criminal  is  a  supreme  egotist, 
whose  standard  of  social  conditions  is  based  upon  his  own  de- 
sires. Crime  is  his  profession ;  the  social  conditions  that  favor 
the  accomplishment  of  his  ends  are  to  him  the  right  of  life ;  all 
those  conditions  which  serve  as  impedimenta  in  the  way  of  his 
criminal  career  are  wrong.  Life  is  with  him  a  battle,  in  which 
he,  the  under  dog,  is  bound  to  do  the  best  he  can  against  terrific 
odds.  His  antisocial  instincts  revolve  around,  and  are  enhanced 
by,  his  consciousness  of  the  social  odds  that  are  opposed  to  him. 
He  has  no  conscience,  either  because  it  has  never  been  developed, 
or  because  his  criminal  career  has  obliterated  it.  He  does  not 
possess  even  that  fear  of  disgrace  which  passes  for  conscience 
with  so  many  law-abiding  people.  The  criminal  fears  the  law, 
but  he  does  not  fear  criticism.  He  is  already  declasse,  and  has 
neither  the  pride  nor  the  sense  of  shame  which  are  such  powerful 
factors  in  controlling  the  conduct  of  the  average  man.  He  has 
neither  self-respect  nor  the  capacity  of  appreciating  the  respect 
of  normal  men.  The  respect  of  his  honest  fellow-men  is  of  no 
use  to  him  in  his  profession,  and  consequently  not  yearned  for. 
In  his  own  class  he  may  be  respected,  and  is  often  admired,  and 
this  is  all-sufficient  for  him. 

Remorse  or  repentance  among  confirmed  criminals  is  not 
only  rare,  but  when  it  is  expressed,  should  be  regarded  with 
suspicion.  The  habitual  criminal  who  expresses  contrition  is 
generally  either  a  hypocrite  with  an  axe  to  grind,  or  a  sick 
criminal  "  out  of  commission."    He  knows  nothing  of  the  sweets 


CHARACTERISTICS    OF    THE    CRIMINAL      499 

of  social  respect  nor  of  honest  labor,  but  he  knows  that  an 
expression  of  appreciation  of  these  things  sometimes  appeals  to 
the  sympathies  of  those  about  him.  Genuine  reform,  in  the  case 
of  hardened  subjects,  is  rare,  and  when  it  does  occur  is  usually 
the  result  of  the  tardy  discovery  that  crime  does  not  pay,  or  of 
religious  influences  which  have  surprised  his  unstable  emotional 
equilibrium  into  conversion  to  the  tenets  of  religion. 

The  foregoing  does  not  argue  for  pessimism  in  the  attitude 
of  society  towards  the  criminal.  It  simply  points  the  moral  that 
if  we  would  reform  the  criminal  we  must  usually  catch  him 
young.  Whether  young  or  old,  he  is  not  likely  to  respond  to 
measures  that  do  not  tend  to  improve  his  physical  condition  and 
develop  his  brain. 

Prosper  Despine's  experience  was  that  of  most  students  of 
the  subject.  He  said,  "  Those  who  premeditate  and  commit 
crime  in  cold  blood  never  experience  remorse.  Those  who  mani- 
fest sorrow  and  genuine  remorse  after  criminal  acts  have  com- 
mitted the  act  under  the  influence  of  passion  that  has  momen- 
tarily stifled  the  moral  sense,  or  by  accident."  ^® 

It  will  be  seen,  then,  that  moral  self-recrimination  is  largely 
confined  to  the  criminal  by  impulse.  Other  things  being  equal, 
the  remorse  of  the  murderer  is  likely  to  be  real,  while  that  of  the 
confirmed  thief  is  counterfeit. 

The  greatest  criminals  of  the  world  have  been  absolute  moral 
paretics.  Lacenaire,  glorying  in  his  horrible  crimes,  and  Wain- 
wright,  whose  explanation  for  killing  a  woman  was  that  "  she 
had  such  thick  legs,"  are  fair  samples  of  this  type  of  criminal. 
Many  juvenile  criminals  show  complete  moral  imbecility. 

An  alleged  humorous  story  is  related  of  a  man  who  mur- 
dered and  robbed  a  shop-keeper  early  one  morning.  The  mur- 
derer had  gotten  away  safely  with  his  booty,  when  he  bethought 
him  of  a  duty  not  yet  performed.  He  retraced  his  steps,  put  up 
the  shutters  of  his  victim's  shop,  locked  the  door,  and  pinned 
upon  it  a  placard  with  the  legend,  "  Notice.  This  place  is  closed 
on  account  of  the  death  of  the  proprietor." 


'•  Psychologic  Morbide. 


500  THE    DISEASES   OF   SOCIETY 

Discounting  the  shrewdness  of  the  assassin  in  thus  delaying 
the  discovery  of  his  crime,  his  moral  attitude  was  suggestive  and 
typic. 

The  nonchalance  with  which  the  hardened  criminal  will  sub- 
mit to  being  photographed  is  indicative  of  moral  anesthesia. 
Occasionally  a  struggle  is  necessary  to  compel  submission,  but 
this  is  generally  from  "  business"  motives,  rather  than  shame. 
The  criminal  portrait  rarely  shows  any  emotion,  least  of  all  that 
of  shame. 

It  is  noticeable  that  among  prostitutes  there  are  many  moral 
paretics  who  regard  their  occupation  as  a  business,  which  is  to  be 
considered  in  the  same  light  as  any  other  means  of  gaining  sub- 
sistence, and  to  be  followed  so  long  as  it  pays  or  is  practicable. 
This  is  perhaps  the  prevalent  psychic  attitude  of  the  confirmed 
harlot. 

COURAGE 

The  quality  of  physical  courage  in  human  beings  is  not  only 
very  difficult  to  define,  but  a  very  uncertain  quantity.  I  do  not 
believe  that  the  average  civilized  man  is,  in  the  strict  sense  of 
the  term,  brave.  In  his  perfectly  lucid  moments  the  normal 
human  being  in  advanced  social  systems  has  a  due  and  proper 
respect  for  his  own  physical  welfare.  The  fear  of  physical  injury 
may  be  inhibited  by  various  emotional  influences  ;  it  is  variously 
inhibited  in  the  savage,  but  I  believe  it  nevertheless  exists  in  the 
average  civilized  man  in  his  normal  condition.  The  courage  of 
the  soldier  is  often  fictitious  and  psychopathic,  and  due  to  the 
influence  of  the  mass  of  men  about  him,  that  gives  him  a  courage 
which  he,  as  an  individual,  does  not  possess, — for  fear,  like 
misery,  loves  company, — associated  with  that  natural  ferocity 
of  the  human  being  which  comes  to  the  fore  as  soon  as  his  in- 
hibitions are  removed.  When  this  element  of  ferocity  is  once 
developed,  the  quality  of  true  courage  can  hardly  be  said  to 
dominate  the  individual,  no  matter  how  heroic  his  actions  may 
seem  to  be. 

In  a  general  way,  it  may  be  stated  that  the  degenerate  flotsam 
and  jetsam  of  humanity  has  less  true  courage  than  the  average 
of  normal  individuals.     Among  habitual  criminals  it  is  a  rare 


CHARACTERISTICS    OF    THE    CRIMINAL      501 

quality.  Insane  criminals,  and  criminals  caught  red-handed  in 
crime,  may  make  a  desperate  battle,  but  in  the  one  case  it  is 
absolute  unconsciousness  of  possible  results,  and  in  the  other 
the  desperation  of  the  cornered  rat,  that  accounts  for  the  actions 
of  the  subject.  Cowardice  is  usually  the  foundation  of  desperate 
resistance  to  capture.  The  fear  of  consequences  inhibits  the  fear 
of  immediate  personal  injury. 

Apathy  and  indifference  sometimes  pass  for  courage  on  the 
part  of  the  criminal.  A  lack  of  emotionalism  is,  however,  a 
rather  poor  imitation  of  heroism. 

The  occasional  criminal  is  not,  as  a  rule,  so  courageous  as  the 
average  man,  because  there  is  in  the  former  some  neuropathic 
defect,  hitherto  latent,  which  not  only  explains  the  crime,  but 
causes  a  weakness  of  character  that  is  incompatible  with  true 
courage. 

Some  of  our  famous  criminals  are  fallaciously  given  credit 
for  a  great  deal  of  courage.  The  press  and  the  stage  alike 
lionize  the  bravery  of  the  train-robber  and  the  border  outlaw. 
The  foundation  of  the  vaunted  courage  of  this  class  of  men  is, 
however,  egotism  and  cowardice.  The  bravery  of  such  men 
is,  as  a  rule,  purely  artificial,  and  is  manufactured  on  occasion 
to  enable  its  possessor  to  accomplish  a  specific  criminal  deed. 
If  such  men  are  courageous,  then  desperation  and  courage  are 
the  same.  This,  however,  I  do  not  believe.  Where  the  exigen- 
cies of  life  outside  of  criminality  demand  true  courage  on  the 
part  of  such  individuals,  they  usually  show  the  white  feather. 
Such  men  are  bravest,  and  indulge  in  the  loudest  rhodomontade, 
in  the  presence  of  helpless  victims  and  in  situations  where  there 
is  no  possible  danger  to  themselves.  When  the  circumstances 
are  reversed,  the  desperado  is  usually  an  arrant  coward,  while, 
as  for  calmly  facing  danger,  he  has  been  rarely  known  to  do  it. 
Now  and  again  coolly  courageous  men  are  found  among  them, 
but  it  not  infrequently  happens  that  those  who  are  alleged  to  be 
the  bravest  of  the  brave  become  panic-stricken  the  moment  the 
odds  seem  to  be  against  them.  The  undrugged  murderer  who 
is  courageous  upon  the  scaffold  is,  in  my  experience,  excep- 
tional, save  in  the  case  of  unequivocal  lunatics.    The  bravery  of 


502  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

Guiteau  upon  the  scaffold  was  merely  the  reflex  of  his  insane 
delusion. 

A  well-known  police  official  informs  me  that  the  favorite 
resort  of  the  ordinary  criminal  whom  the  police  is  in  search  of 
is  the  opium-joint.  This  man  claims  that  thieves  frequent  these 
places  and  smoke  opium,  solely  to  enable  them  to  control  the 
fear  of  arrest  and  punishment  which  dominates  them,  by  blunt- 
ing their  perceptions  with  the  narcotic. 

EMOTIONAL    INSTABILITY 

Ellis "  has  called  especial  attention  to  the  emotional  in- 
stability of  the  criminal.  He  says,  "  He  is  capable  of  moments 
of  violent  activity.  He  cannot  live  without  them.  They  are 
the  chief  events  of  his  spiritual  life.  He  loves  excitement  and 
will  resort  to  anything  to  relieve  the  monotony  of  his  existence. 
This  is  one  of  the  reasons  why  alcoholism  and  crime  go  hand  in 
hand."  It  must  be  remembered  in  this  connection,  however, 
that  alcoholism  is  often  the  cause  of  crime,  and  when  once  begun 
is  likely  to  be  continued. 

The  criminal  is  a  natural  gambler.  I  have  known  of  numer- 
ous instances  in  which  his  chief  ambition  in  life  was  to  steal,  in 
order  that  he  might  play.  The  higher  class  of  criminals  in  par- 
ticular have  a  penchant  for  gambling.  The  spectacle  of  the 
confidence  man  in  the  act  of  being  plucked  of  the  spoils  that  he 
has  taken  from  some  pigeon  in  the  ordinary  walks  of  life  is 
somewhat  amusing.  I  know  of  one  case,  a  professional  card- 
sharper,  a  past  master  in  the  art  of  "  cold  decking,"  who  had 
such  a  passion  for  faro  that,  knowing  that  he  was  being  robbed, 
he  would  play  his  money  away  as  fast  as  he  despoiled  others 
of  it  at  poker. 

I  will  allude  later  to  the  abnormal  craving  for  excitement 
and  diversion  that  impels  convicts  to  malingering. 

The  criminal  who  has  made  a  successful  haul  is  rarely  con- 
tent until  he  has  spent  the  proceeds  in  debauchery.  The  opium 
habit  is  extremely  prevalent  among  the  criminal  class,  who  con- 

"  Op.  cit. 


CHARACTERISTICS    OF   THE    CRIMINAL      503 

stitute  the  bulk  of  the  patronage  of  many  of  the  opium-joints 
in  our  large  cities. 

Periodic  emotional  explosions  among  criminals  have  been 
described  by  Debriick,  Krafft-Ebing,  and  Lombroso.  These  out- 
bursts or  nerve-storms  are  akin  to  epilepsy  in  some  ways,  and  are 
attended  by  great  violence  of  conduct.  They  are  often  the 
epileptic  equivalent.  While  the  fit  is  on,  the  criminal  is  liable  to 
attack  anybody  who  happens  to  be  at  hand,  particularly  if  pro- 
voked by  them,  and  to  break  and  tear  everything  he  can  lay  his 
hands  upon.  Criminals  under  twenty  years  of  age  seem  to  be 
especially  prone  to  these  emotional  attacks.  It  is  claimed  that 
such  attacks  are  more  liable  to  occur  in  the  spring  and  summer. 
They  often  represent  a  reaction  from  the  dull  monotony  of  prison 
life.  Not  infrequently  they  are  an  expression  of  suppressed 
sexuality. 

ETHICS    AND   SENTIMENT 

I  have  noted  with  considerable  interest  that  the  criminal 
has  a  more  or  less  definite,  even  if  peculiar,  idea  of  ethics.  His 
conception  of  ethics  is  founded  primarily  upon  the  belief  that 
criminality  is  a  profession, — the  profession  of  those  who  have 
not,  by  which  they  wage  relentless  war  upon  those  who  have. 
The  morality  of  the  acts  of  the  typic  criminal  does  not  concern 
him.  He  is  occupied  chiefly  in  estimating  the  dangers  of  his 
occupation  and  the  liability  of  getting  caught,  and,  if  caught,  his 
chances  of  punishment.  The  percentage  of  chances  of  render- 
ing an  account  to  society  enter  into  his  computations  of  the 
vicissitudes  and  profits  of  his  profession.  He  operates  upon  the 
theory  that  the  world  owes  him  a  living,  and  that  the  laws  are 
simply  impedimenta  thrown  in  his  way  by  the  Upper  World  to 
prevent  him  from  getting  what  is  justly  his  due.  He  often  has 
the  highest  possible  respect  for  his  own  branch  of  the  profession 
of  crime.  He  looks  admiringly  upon  the  feats  of  those  who  are 
cleverer,  or  more  successful,  than  himself,  and  who  perpetrate 
crimes  of  greater  magnitude  than  those  which  are  possible  in 
his  own  branch  of  the  profession.  He  regards  with  contempt, 
however,  certain  other  criminals.  The  existence  of  caste  among 
criminals  is  thus  readily  explained.    Its  existence  may  be  demon- 


S04  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

strated  by  any  one  who  will  take  the  trouble  to  study  the  types 
found  in  any  of  our  large  penal  institutions.  At  Blackwell's 
Island  I  noted  that  the  assault  and  battery  man  looked  with 
supreme  contempt  upon  the  petty  thief ;  the  footpad  despised 
the  sneak  thief,  and  the  burglar  the  pickpocket.  The  criminal 
aristocrats  were  the  forgers,  murderers,  and  counterfeiters. 
Among  the  women  prisoners,  the  female  abortionist  was  a  sort 
of  social  pariah.  The  most  despised  individual  in  the  institution 
was  a  clergyman,  under  sentence  for  starving  children.  I  re- 
member a  conversation  that  occurred  between  the  reverend  gen- 
tleman and  a  young  footpad,  which  was  very  edifying.  The 
former  undertook  to  discipline  the  youth  for  the  error  of  his 
ways,  and  alluded  to  him  as  a  felon.  The  contemptuous  epithets 
applied  to  the  convict  preacher,  not  only  by  the  young  footpad 
himself,  but  by  every  other  convict  within  hearing,  were  highly 
edifying,  even  though  unprintable.  This  same  clergyman  was 
the  "  best  hated"  man  in  the  prison. 

It  is  only  fair  to  state  that  caste  distinctions  among  criminals 
are  not  so  finely  drawn  as  formerly.  Specialism  in  crime  is  less 
popular  than  it  once  was.  The  latter-day  criminal  often  turns 
his  hand  to  whatever  branch  of  crime  seems  most  alluring  for 
the  time  being.  The  pickpocket  of  to-day  is  sometimes  the 
safe-blower  of  to-morrow. 

A  celebrated  American  bank  robber,  recently  convicted,  takes 
great  pride  in  asserting  that  he  has  never  wronged  another  man. 
When  interrogated  as  to  his  meaning,  he  said  that  the  victims  of 
his  robberies  were  strangers  to  him,  and  therefore  fair  game, 
but  that  he  had  never  betrayed  a  man  who  trusted  him,  and  was 
never  faithless  with  a  friend.  Such  a  betrayal  of  trust,  he  said, 
he  would  consider  a  sin.  His  ethical  attitude  was  suggestive  of 
that  of  the  Maori  chief,  who  said  that  when  he  met  a  man  in  his 
daily  walks  and  stabbed  him  to  death  with  his  spear,  he  called 
it  a  "  killing,"  but  that  if  he  should  inveigle  him  into  his  tent  as  a 
guest,  and  slay  him  while  he  was  asleep,  he  would  call  that 
"  murder." 

The  old  adage  of  honor  among  thieves  is  an  integral  part  of 
criminal  ethics.    It  is  true  that  criminals  do  betray  and  defraud 


CHARACTERISTICS    OF   THE    CRIMINAL      505 

one  another,  but  this  very  rarely  occurs,  and  where  it  does,  the 
individual  who  is  sacrificed  is  often  the  victim  of  professional 
expediency.  It  is  necessary  for  thieves  at  times  to  sacrifice  one 
or  more  of  their  number  upon  the  altar  of  justice,  in  order  to 
secure  immunity  from  police  interference  with  the  Under  World 
in  general.  At  such  times  as  the  police  systems  of  large  cities 
find  it  necessary  to  make  a  bluflf  of  activity,  for  the  benefit  of 
inquiring  tax-payers,  victims  from  the  Under  World  must  be 
offered  up  to  satisfy  the  cravings  of  the  public  maw. 

Family  affection  and  domestic  attachment  are  foreign  to  the 
majority  of  criminals,  but  where  they  exist  they  may  be  developed 
to  an  extraordinary  degree.  Among  the  higher  class  of  crimi- 
nals, particularly,  the  occupation  of  the  father  may  be  sedu- 
lously hidden  from  his  family.  Instances  have  been  known  in 
which  notorious  criminals  have  not  only  guarded  in  every  way 
possible  against  the  discovery  of  their  occupation  by  their  wives 
and  children,  but  have  also  taken  extreme  pains  to  subject  them 
to  only  impeccable  moral  and  intellectual  influences.  Inspector 
Byrnes,  of  the  New  York  police  force,  has  described  a  number 
of  interesting  cases  of  this  kind.^^ 

The  spirit  of  Robin  Hood  is  still  to  be  found  among  social 
pariahs.  The  successful  thief  is  often  free-handed  with  his 
money  and  ready  to  succor  the  distress.  That  wholesale  mur- 
derer and  thief,  Billy  the  Kid,  was  long  protected  by  the  ranch- 
men, not  only  because  they  feared  him,  but  also  because  he  was 
a  good  fellow.  Criminals  often  stand  by  each  other  through 
thick  and  thin.  One  celebrated  gang  of  swindlers  in  America 
sacrifices  most  of  its  ill-gotten  gains  in  the  defence  and  relief  of 
the  less  fortunate  of  its  members.  Prostitutes  and  professional 
gamblers  stand  by  each  other  in  adversity  in  a  manner  that 
rather  puts  respectables  to  the  blush. 

One  of  the  most  honorable  men  I  ever  knew,  so  far  as  his 
dealings  in  money  matters  were  concerned,  was  a  man  who  did 
not  hesitate  to  swindle  the  public  by  all  sorts  of  nefarious 
schemes.     The  kindliest,  most  humane,  and  liberal  man  T  ever 

**  Noted  Criminals  of  America. 


5o6  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

met  was  a  California  "  short-card"  player,  who  would  "  cold 
deck"  an  opponent  with  never  a  twinge  of  conscience.  As  a 
boy,  I  chanced  to  know  the  famous  outlaw,  Three-Fingered 
Jack,  of  Calaveras,  who  was  noted  for  his  affection  for  children 
and  his  humane  liberality.  When  his  various  crimes  had  been 
brought  home  to  him  and,  with  others  of  his  gang,  he  suffered 
the  penalty  of  the  law  on  the  scaffold,  it  was  with  great  diffi- 
culty that  those  who  knew  him  could  be  either  brought  to  believe 
in  his  guilt  or  reconciled  to  his  death. 

Sentimentality,  in  the  true  sense  of  the  term,  is  certainly  rare 
in  the  born  criminal.  He  appreciates  kind  treatment,  it  is  true, 
but  mainly  after  the  fashion  of  the  lower  animals,  whose  senti- 
mentality is  obviously  quite  limited.  That  criminals  are  fre- 
quently kind  to  their  wounded  or  sick  comrades  is  also  true,  but 
it  is  rare  that  one  will  hazard  his  own  physical  safety  to  save  a 
comrade.  Crime  is  a  lottery  in  which  each  player  must  take  his 
chances. 

RELIGION 

The  great  majority  of  convicts  found  in  our  prisons  testify  to 
religious  training  of  some  kind  or  other.  It  is  not  an  uncommon 
experience  that  criminals  are  extraordinarily  "  religious."  They 
sometimes  pray  for  the  success  of  their  criminal  operations,  as 
one  might  for  the  success  of  a  worthy  action.  The  dominance  of 
religious  sentiment  is  chiefly  noticeable  among  Catholics.  I  have 
interviewed  many  criminals  of  this  creed  who  seem  to  consider 
themselves  religious  in  spite  of  their  criminal  record.  In  many 
instances  the  confessional  is  a  psychic  panacea  for  any  crime  the 
individual  may  have  committed.  The  spectacle  of  a  clergyman, 
sentenced  for  what  was  in  effect  child  murder,  preaching  to  the 
other  convicts  at  Blackwell's  Island  was  highly  edifying. 

Quite  as  absurd  in  many  ways  as  the  profession  of  religion 
by  the  criminal  is  the  endeavor  to  cram  religion  down  his  throat 
by  prison  authorities.  I  once  witnessed  the  Sunday  services  in 
a  certain  State  reformatory.  The  convicts  were  gathered  in  a 
large  hall.  In  one  corner  of  this  hall,  suspended  near  the  ceiling, 
was  an  iron  cage,  in  which  sat  a  keeper  armed  with  a  Win- 
chester rifle.     Before  the  services  began  he  climbed  into  this 


CHARACTERISTICS    OF    THE    CRIMINAL      507 

cage  through  a  sort  of  trap-door,  and  closed  the  door  after  him, 
so  that  he  was  inaccessible  to  the  convicts.  He  then  proceeded 
to  keep  watch  and  ward  over  the  helpless  victims  of  the  preacher's 
oratory,  which,  be  it  remarked,  was  of  a  quality  that  made  the 
necessity  of  preventing  by  force  of  arms  the  escape  of  his 
auditors  easily  understood. 

The  assertion  is  made  that  atheists  and  free-thinkers  are  rare 
in  European  prisons.  This  is  not  true  of  American  penal  insti- 
tutions, in  which  such  individuals  are  frequently  to  be  met  with. 
I  recall  that  at  the  time  the  clergyman  convict,  already  mentioned, 
was  whiling  away  the  hours  of  his  confinement  by  preaching  to 
his  fellow-prisoners  at  Blackwell's  Island  he  had  a  formidable 
rival  in  the  person  of  a  free-thinker,  whose  arguments  were  con- 
fessedly very  masterly,  and  with  whom  the  clerical  rascal  was 
unable  to  successfully  compete.  The  auditors  of  their  frequent 
debates  were  usually  about  evenly  divided  in  their  sympathies. 
The  opportunity  for  the  discussion  of  their  views  was  aflforded 
by  the  circumstance  that  both  were  inmates  of  the  hospital,  and 
the  other  patients  were  privileged  to  listen  or  participate  if  they 
saw  fit. 

VANITY 

That  vanity  is  a  prominent  feature  of  the  psychology  of  the 
criminal  has  been  noted  by  numerous  observers.  Ellis  ^"  remarks, 
"  Their  vanity  witnesses  at  once  to  their  false  estimate  of  living 
and  of  themselves,  and  to  their  egotistic  delight  in  admiration." 
In  this  respect,  the  criminal  is  in  nowise  different  from  the  de- 
generate in  general.  Vanity  is  one  of  the  weak  points  of  the 
mental  organization  of  some  individuals  whose  intellect  is  highly 
developed.  An  extreme  degree  of  vanity  characterizes  the  crimi- 
nal, certain  insane,  and  many  geniuses  alike. 

Many  of  the  illustrations  given  by  various  writers  of  the 
vanity  of  the  criminal  simply  prove  the  insanity  of  the  subject. 
Ellis  cites  a  case  of  a  Russian  youth  of  nineteen  who  killed  an 
entire  family.  When  he  heard  that  all  St.  Petersburg  was  talk- 
ing of  him,  he  said,  "  Now  my  school-fellows  will  see  how  unfair 

"Op.  cit. 


5o8  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

it  was  of  them  to  say  that  I  should  never  be  heard  of."  The 
desire  for  notoriety  pervading  certain  unbalanced  minds  was 
well  illustrated  in  the  case  of  Guiteau,  in  whom  it  was  one  of  the 
chief  incentives  to  the  perpetration  of  the  terrible  crime  for 
which  he  was  hanged. 

Many  interesting  cases  of  a  similar  character  are  recorded. 
The  diaries  kept  by  the  Marquise  de  Brinvillers,  Thomas  Wain- 
wright,  the  celebrated  English  essayist,  forger,  and  murderer, 
and  John  Wilkes  Booth,  in  which  they  gloried  in  the  details  of 
their  crimes,  plainly  exhibited  the  egotism  of  the  mentally 
deranged. 

The  vanity  of  the  criminal  aristocracy — i.e.,  those  who  com- 
mit the  more  daring  and  profitable  crimes — is  easily  understood. 
As  already  remarked,  crime  is  regarded  by  its  perpetrators  of 
the  habitual  class  as  a  profession,  and  those  who  exhibit  the 
greatest  prowess  are  the  subjects  of  the  adulation  of  their  co- 
workers in  crime.  The  great  criminal  is  the  genius  of  the  crime 
class,  and  he  has  all  of  the  defects  of  the  true  genius  without  any 
of  his  admirable  qualities.  One  of  these  defects,  as  already 
observed,  is  a  morbid  degree  of  self-appreciation. 

CRIMINAL   LITERATURE   AND   ART 

The  history  of  crime  shows  a  few  criminal  geniuses,  among 
whom  Wainwright,  Eugene  Aram,  Oscar  Wilde,  Villon,  Casa- 
nova, Cellini,  and  Paul  Verlaine  are  prominent.  It  is  probable 
that  geniuses  would  be  more  frequently  met  with  among  our 
prison  population  were  it  not  for  the  vicarious  outlet  of  crimi- 
nality in  directions  which  do  not  compromise  the  legal  status 
of  the  individual.  Gigantic  financial  enterprises  and  militarism 
are  an  illustration  of  the  vicarious  outlets  for  criminal  tendencies. 
Such  individuals  as  those  enumerated  are,  however,  not  to  be 
taken  as  a  criterion  of  the  literary  or  artistic  bent  of  the  true 
criminal. 

Clever  men  and  women  are  more  often  found  among  Ameri- 
can criminals  than  in  Europe,  where  the  criminal  class  is  so  dis- 
tinctive in  type  that  occasional  criminals  are  fewer,  and  habitual 
criminals  more  numerous,  than  in  America. 


CHARACTERISTICS    OF   THE    CRIMINAL      509 

In  general,  the  literary  and  artistic  talent  and  incfination  of 
the  habitual  criminal  is  about  what  might  be  expected  from  a 
person  of  a  relatively  inferior  grade  of  intelligence. 

Granting  that  the  rare  qualities  of  the  greatest  geniuses  may, 
without  opportunity,  lie  dormant,  what  can  be  expected  of  the 
typically  criminal  class,  which  is  composed  of  the  very  dregs  of 
society  and  has  no  opportunity  for  development?  There  are,  it 
is  true,  exceptional  cases,  even  among  the  lower  class  of  crimi- 
nals, in  which  the  individual  presents  a  high  degree  of  artistic 
ability.  So  long  as  he  is  sane,  however,  the  habitual  criminal  is 
not  given  to  literary  productions  worthy  of  attention.  His 
poetry  is  usually  vulgar  or  even  obscene  doggerel,  and  his  prose 
compositions  incoherent  and  crude. 

In  the  main,  the  art  of  the  criminal  is  comparable  to  that  of 
the  untrained  child  or  savage.  The  criminal's  taste  for  literature 
is  also  of  the  primitive  or  juvenile  type.  He  likes  the  yellow- 
backed  variety  of  novel,  and  stories  in  which  desperadoes  and 
criminals  are  the  heroes,  rather  than  the  sort  that  point  a  moral 
to  adorn  a  tale. 

It  must  be  acknowledged,  however,  that  some  of  the  publica- 
tions emanating  from  criminals  in  our  penal  institutions  contain 
evidences  of  considerable  talent.  One  of  the  most  noteworthy 
of  these  productions  is  a  newspaper  published  at  the  Cook 
County  jail,  contributions  to  which  are  almost  altogether  fur- 
nished by  prisoners. 

The  Summary,  a  newspaper  edited  and  published  by  the  in- 
mates of  the  New  York  Reformatory  at  Elmira,  compares  very 
favorably  with  other  papers  in  the  character  of  its  contributions 
and  editorials. 

MALINGERING 

One  of  the  most  peculiar  phases  of  the  psychology  of  the 
criminal  is  his  tendency  to  malingering.  Physicians  who  deal 
with  large  bodies  of  men  find  that  their  labors  are  greatly  en- 
hanced by  cases  of  pretended  illness  of  various  kinds.  Nowhere 
is  the  burden  of  dififerential  diagnosis  between  real  and  assumed 
illness  so  great  as  it  is  within  the  walls  of  prisons.  The  inex- 
perienced physician  who  takes  charge  of  a  penal  institution  finds 


5IO  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

it  impossible  at  first  to  do  the  work  that  devolves  upon  him,  on 
account  of  the  large  number  of  inmates  who  pretend  illness.  It 
requires  considerable  knowledge  of  human  nature,  and  some- 
what prolonged  experience  in  institutional  work,  to  enable  one  to 
avoid,  on  the  one  hand,  the  impositions  placed  upon  him  by 
malingerers,  and,  on  the  other,  the  danger  of  injustice  to  those 
who  are  really  ill.  The  prison  physician  who  assumes  that  all 
convicts  who  report  to  him  for  treatment  are  really  ill  will  be 
overburdened  with  care.  He  who  goes  to  the  opposite  extreme 
will  work  great  cruelty  and  injustice  to  those  who  are  really 
ailing. 

The  prison  physician,  even  when  he  has  had  considerable 
experience,  is  quite  as  likely  to  make  mistakes  in  diagnosis  as 
physicians  outside  of  prisons,  whom  no  one  claims  to  be  infallible. 
As  a  matter  of  principle,  it  is  better  to  be  deceived  by  a  dozen 
malingerers  than  to  allow  a  single  bona  fide  invalid  to  go  with- 
out proper  care.  The  prison  physician  is  a  powerful  factor  for 
good  or  evil.  He  exerts  a  humanizing  influence  upon  his  charges 
such  as  no  one  else  possibly  can.  The  milk  of  human  kindness 
is  not  always  thrown  away  upon  the  convict,  and  nothing  makes 
him  more  rebellious  than  to  feel  that  common  humanity  is 
denied  him. 

Malingering  on  the  part  of  criminals  is  usually  attributed  to 
a  desire  to  escape  work.  This  may  be  the  explanation  of  many 
cases,  but  certainly  is  not  a  sufficient  explanation  for  all.  Work 
within  reasonable  limits  is  desirable  to  perhaps  the  majority  of 
American  prison  inmates,  who  welcome  it  as  a  relief  from  the 
deadly  monotony  and  stagnation  of  prison  life  which,  in  the 
absence  of  systematic  occupation,  would  necessarily  prevail. 
There  are  few  convicts,  indeed,  who  do  not  realize  that  suitable 
occupation  is  better  for  them  physically  than  is  cell  confine- 
ment. The  records  of  prison  management  have  shown  the 
necessity  of  engaging  convicts  in  employment  of  various  kinds. 
Prior  to  the  introduction  of  labor  in  prisons  a  very  large 
proportion  of  convicts  went  insane  within  a  comparatively  short 
period. 

Criminality  is  by  no  means  always  an  evidence  of  a  desire  to 


CHARACTERISTICS    OF    THE    CRIMINAL      511 

shirk  industry  in  the  battle  of  Hfe,  nor  is  it  necessarily  an  evi- 
dence of  incapacity  to  obtain  success  by  honest  means.  Many 
a  criminal  by  profession  expends  talent  and  energy,  and  ex- 
hibits a  faculty  of  application  in  his  chosen  field  of  labor  which, 
if  diverted  into  proper  channels,  might  make  him  phenomenally 
successful.  His  moral  perception  is  blunted  by  his  innate  re- 
sponse to  the  law  of  self-preservation  along  what  he  considers 
the  line  of  least  resistance.  Counterfeiters  sometimes  display 
talent  and  industry  which  should  find  a  ready  and  much  more 
remunerative  market  than  in  defrauding  the  government.  Bills 
of  large  denomination,  produced  entirely  by  pen-work,  and 
which  were  well  worth  their  face-value  as  works  of  art,  have 
been  captured  at  various  times,  and  must  have  cost  more  in 
labor,  to  say  nothing  of  the  skill  involved,  than  could  have  been 
earned  in  legitimate  work  of  the  same  kind  during  the  same 
period.  The  counterfeit  in  some  instances  has  been  detected  by 
the  superior  excellence  of  the  work. 

My  experience  leads  me  to  believe  that  the  malingering  of 
convicts  is  in  itself  a  manifestation  of  degeneracy.  The  unstable 
nervous  equilibrium  of  the  criminal  evolves  a  craving  for  sym- 
pathy, and  a  craving  more  particularly  for  diversion  from  the 
monotony  of  prison  life.  The  sick-call  is  an  event  in  his  ex- 
istence, and  to  secure  and  profit  by  it  he  will  swallow  the  most 
nauseous  doses  with  gusto.  No  treatment  is  severe  enough  to 
dissuade  him  from  malingering. 

The  intensification  of  the  ego  on  the  part  of  the  criminal  is  a 
further  explanation  of  malingering,  in  that  it  leads  him  to  believe 
himself  an  object  of  solicitude,  or  at  least  interest,  on  the  part  of 
others.  He  has  also  the  idea  that  the  rough  places  in  his  prison 
career  will  be  smoother  in  proportion  as  he  excites  the  sympathy 
of  those  about  him. 

Criminals  who  are  denied  stimulants  and  tobacco  sometimes 
find  in  drugs  a  gastronomic  novelty  that  seems  to  them  greatly 
to  be  desired.  In  many  instances  malingering  is  due  to  hypo- 
chondriasis pure  and  simple,  the  patient  being  in  nowise  difTer- 
ent  from  the  hypochondriac  seen  in  private  practice  who  suffers 
from  imaginary  ailments  and  has  acquired  a  taste  for  drugs. 


512  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

Dr.  Druet,  of  the  Animosa  Penitentiary,  believes  that  many 
mahngerers  in  prisons  are  simply  individuals  with  the  patent- 
medicine  habit,  who  have  fallen  in  the  toils  of  the  law,  and  desire 
to  continue  titillating  their  palates  with  drugs. 

There  is  a  class  of  convicts  who  are  desirous  of  having  sur- 
gical operations  of  various  kinds  performed  for  the  relief  of 
deformities,  unsightly  scars,  etc.  In  some  instances  the  patient 
is  merely  responding  to  his  desire  for  sympathy  and  an  oppor- 
tunity to  loaf  in  the  hospital,  where  he  will  be  well  taken  care  of. 
In  others, — and  this  class  comprises  perhaps  the  majority  of 
cases, — he  merely  wishes  to  rid  himself  of  marks  of  identifica- 
tion. Through  this  desire  I  obtained  considerable  experience  in 
correcting  nasal  deformities  during  my  prison  service. 

The  relatively  luxurious  diet  and  ease  of  hospital  life  impel 
some  convicts  to  feign  illness. 

One  of  the  prime  factors  in  the  encouragement  of  malinger- 
ing is-  the  custom  that  prevails  in  prisons  of  dispensing  "  soft" 
positions  to  favorites  among  the  convicts.  Without  any  diffi- 
culty whatever,  the  warden  can  usually  secure  the  assignment  of 
a  convict,  to  whom,  for  reasons  best  known  to  himself,  he  de- 
sires to  be  especially  kind,  to  the  hospital,  where  he  is  often  kept 
during  the  entire  term  of  his  sentence. 

Convicts  who  are  not  used  to  hard  labor  are  sometimes 
assigned  work  which  is  little  less  than  slow  death  for  them.  I 
have  known  men  who  were  at  work  in  the  stone-yard  to  de- 
liberately smash  their  fingers  and  toes  with  a  setting  maul,  for 
the  purpose  of  being  sent  to  the  hospital.  One  man  sacrificed 
his  fingers  in  this  way  so  frequently  that  I  finally,  through  sheer 
pity,  allowed  him  to  remain  permanently  in  the  hospital. 

Malingering  is  a  very  difficult  thing  to  cure.  I  finally  suc- 
ceeded, in  my  own  prison  service,  in  a  way  that  may  suggest 
itself  as  practical  to  other  prison  physicians.  For  months  I  had 
vainly  tried  indescribably  nauseous  doses  and  the  dark  cell.  I 
finally  hit  upon  the  expedient  of  having  the  sick-call  sounded  at 
dinner-time.  The  success  of  the  experiment  is  evidenced  by  the 
fact  that,  whereas  one  hundred  and  eighty  men  appeared  in 
the  sick-line  the  previous  day,  there  were  only  twelve  in  line  on 


CHARACTERISTICS    OF    THE    CRIMINAL      513 

the  first  clay  of  the  new  arrangement.  The  latter  number  is 
about  the  average  that  presented  themselves  at  the  daily  sick- 
call  during  the  remainder  of  my  term  of  service. 

TATTOOING 

The  practice  of  tattooing  is  very  prevalent  among  criminals 
of  the  habitual  variety.  It  is  especially  frequent  among  Euro- 
pean criminals.  So  far  as  my  own  observations  enable  me  to 
form  an  opinion,  criminals  who  submit  to  tattooing  are  actuated 
by  various  and  complex  motives.  The  psychology  of  habitual 
criminals  is,  in  general,  very  primitive,  being  akin  in  many  re- 
spects to  that  of  the  child  or  savage.  Novelties  attract  them, 
and  the  suggestion  of  the  bizarre  offered  by  tattooing  has  a  very 
powerful  influence  upon  them.  There  is  also  the  element  of  an 
aristocratic  tendency  among  criminals,  which,  in  effect,  is  not 
very  different  from  that  shown  by  respectable  men  and  women 
who  wear  distinctive  emblems  of  one  kind  or  another. 

There  is  an  inherent  mysticism  in  a  large  proportion  of  the 
human  race.  This,  in  combination  with  a  desire  for  class  and 
individual  distinction,  is  the  fountain-head  of  Masonry  and  its 
congeners.  There  is  a  Masonry  among  criminals  as  well  as  in 
the  Upper  World.  This  has  come  to  be  well  recognized  among 
criminologists.  The  distinctive  tattoo  marks  found  especially 
among  European  criminals  are  indicative  of  an  esprit  de  corps 
that  is  psychically  the  same  as  that  which  actuates  the  wearer  of 
a  Grand  Army  badge  or  Masonic  emblem.  So  far  as  the  pride 
of  exhibition  of  the  insignia  is  concerned,  the  criminal,  with  his 
emblematic  tattoo  marks,  is  on  a  par  with  the  respectable  gentle- 
man who  displays  the  mysterious  cross  or  double  eagle  of  the 
higher  orders  of  Freemasonry. 

The  intense  ego  of  the  criminal  and  his  primitive  ideas  of 
personal  adornment  have  much  to  do  with  his  custom  of  tattoo- 
ing. The  various  emblems  with  which  he  adorns  his  skin  stamp 
him  as  of  the  criminal  aristocracy,  and  give  him  inflated  ideas  of 
his  own  importance,  which  ideas  are  with  little  difficulty  im- 
parted to  his  criminal  brethren.  The  ideas  of  personal  adornment 
prevalent  among  criminals  are  distinctly  atavistic  in  character, 

33 


514  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

and,  so  far  as  tattooing  is  concerned,  place  them  on  a  common 
plane  with  the  American  Indian  or  the  South  Sea  Islander. 

A  point  worthy  of  attention  is  the  fact  that  the  resources 
of  the  criminal  for  amusement  are  very  limited  while  in  prison, 
and  moderately  so  outside  of  it.  Tattooing  affords  an  oppor- 
tunity for  diversion  to  both  artist  and  subject,  and  gratification 
of  the  egotism  of  both,  and  especially  of  the  former.  The  cus- 
tom of  tattooing  his  own  initials  or  name  upon  his  skin  is  rarely 
actuated  by  a  desire  for  identification  in  any  individual,  least  of 
all  in  the  criminal.  It  is  inspired  by  egotism,  pure  and  simple, 
and  is  based  upon  the  same  principle  as  the  cutting  of  their 
initials  in  all  sorts  of  places  by  respectable  individuals.  From 
the  stand-point  of  egotism,  the  sailor  who  tattoos  his  own  initials 
upon  his  breast  is  on  a  par  with  the  criminal  who  adorns  himself 
in  a  similar  manner.  In  the  case  of  the  criminal,  only  over- 
powering egotism  could  so  far  overcome  his  abhorrence  of 
establishing  permanent  means  of  identification  as  to  cause  him 
to  deliberately  submit  to  the  tattooing  of  his  own  initials  upon 
his  person.  The  tattooing  by  male  criminals  of  female  figures 
and  names  on  their  bodies  is,  in  many  instances,  mere  sexual 
symbolism,  and  is  rarely  actuated  by  a  refined  quality  of  senti- 
ment. The  same  holds  true  of  non-criminal  individuals  who 
decorate  themselves  in  like  manner.  Not  infrequently  it  is  a 
manifestation  of  true  perversion. 

In  a  certain  sense,  the  same  primitiveness  of  psychology  that 
is  responsible  for  the  tattooing  prevalent  among  criminals  is 
explanatory  of  their  penchant  for  writing  vulgar  and  obscene 
inscriptions  upon  the  walls  of  their  cells  and  on  the  margins  of 
books.  This  has  been  quoted  as  characteristic  of  the  criminal 
class.  It  is,  however,  the  correlative  of  the  same  sort  of  in- 
scriptions and  the  vulgar  and  obscene  pictures  that  are  to  be 
found  in  various  places  of  sanitary  convenience  and  physiologic 
necessity,  which  are  not  supposed  to  be  frequented  by  criminals 
alone.  The  latter  class  of  inscriptions  is  mainly  the  work  of 
juveniles.  The  analogy  between  the  immature  minds  of  boys, 
which  lean  towards  depravity  of  expression  in  the  manner  de- 
scribed, and  those  of  criminals  at  once  suggests  itself.     The 


CHARACTERISTICS    OF    THE    CRIMINAL      515 

class  of  drawings  and  inscriptions  alluded  to  are  evidence  of 
perverted  or  suppressed  sexuality. 

Ellis  -"  noted  the  writing  of  inscriptions,  verses,  sentiments, 
etc.,  on  the  walls  of  cells  and  in  other  places  by  criminals  as  an 
expression  of  their  desire  to  assert  their  individuality,  and  to 
relieve  loneliness  by  self-communion  that  shall  present  some 
objective  evidence  of  their  existence. 

Lombroso  has  laid  especial  stress  upon  tattooing  as  an  evi- 
dence of  atavism  in  the  criminal. 

Ellis  says  that  tattooing  is  an  evidence  of  the  sensory  ob- 
tundity  of  the  criminal.  While  the  relative  insensibility  of  the 
criminal  to  pain  is  admitted,  I  doubt  whether  it  is  responsible 
for  tattooing.  The  desire  for  decoration  of  the  skin  with  tattoo- 
ing existing,  the  trifling  amount  of  pain  produced  by  the  process 
would  not  be  likely  to  be  taken  into  consideration.  The  relative 
insensibility  of  the  criminal  to  pain  is  a  point  where  atavism  and 
degeneracy  are  so  closely  blended  that  their  differentiation  would 
savor  of  splitting  hairs.  I  believe,  moreover,  that  the  relative 
insensibility  of  the  savage  to  pain,  which  is  the  foundation  of 
the  atavistic  theory  of  the  relative  insensibility  of  the  criminal, 
has  been  somewhat  exaggerated.  In  the  case  of  our  American 
Indian,  particularly,  the  stoicism  exhibited  under  torture  is 
largely  a  matter  of  cultivation.  The  Indian,  from  babyhood  up, 
is  subjected  to  various  sources  of  physical  torment,  to  which  he 
eventually  becomes  inured,  largely  through  that  familiarity 
which  breeds  contempt,  and  a  species  of  auto-suggestion.  If 
the  savage  knew  aught  of  the  theories  of  degeneracy,  he  doubt- 
less would  classify  as  degenerates  those  whose  stoicism  gave 
way  under  physical  pain. 

Relative  anesthesia  is  normal  in  the  female,  even  among 
civilized  women.  Neuro-degeneracy,  in  general,  does  not  always 
increase  this  relative  insensibility,  as  shown  by  certain  hysterics 
and  hysteroids  who  are  extremely  sensitive  to  pain.  Hysterical 
anesthesia  has  its  counterpart  in  hysterical  hyperesthesia. 

Admitting,  as  we  perforce  must,  the  relative  insensibility  of 

^  Op.  cit. 


5i6  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

the  savage,  we  are  by  no  means  justified  in  assigning  a  lack  of 
sensibility  to  degeneracy.  On  the  contrary,  I  believe  that  the 
savage  standard  is  the  normal ;  that  of  civilized  man  the  artificial. 
An  approximation  of  civilized  man  to  the  savage,  as  regards 
relative  insensibility  to  pain,  should  logically  be  termed  atavistic, 
rather  than  degenerative,  unless  neuropathic  disorder  can  be 
shown. 


CHAPTER   XIII 

ILLUSTRATIVE    CRANIA    AND    PHYSIOGNOMIES    OF    DEGENERATES — 
TYPES   OF   CRIMINALS 

Whatever  views  may  be  held  regarding  the  relation  of 
physical  degeneracy  to  crime  and  other  social  diseases,  and  how- 
ever much  of  exaggeration  of  minor  details  of  cranial  contour 
and  development  may  appear  in  the  observations  of  the  Euro- 
pean school  of  criminal  anthropologists,  many  suggestive  facts 
are  developed  by  the  study  of  the  skulls  and  physiognomies  of 
social  offenders  and  degenerates  in  general. 

The  illustrative  types  shown  herewith  are  not  presented  for 
the  purpose  of  proving  the  correlation  of  a  given  type  of  skull 
or  physiognomy  with  social  offences  in  general ;  least  of  all 
are  they  intended  to  show  the  correlation  of  a  certain  type  of 
skull  with  a  given  kind  of  antisocial  tendency.  I  desire  merely 
to  show  the  strikingly  degenerate  type  presented  by  antisocial 
beings  in  general,  and  the  following  illustrative  series  in  par- 
ticular. The  marked  aberrance  of  type  and  asymmetry  of  the 
series  of  skulls  and  heads  presented  herewith  are  especially  sug- 
gestive and  striking,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  they  were  not 
selected  from  a  large  number  of  skulls  and  subjects  because  of 
their  deformity,  but  comprise  the  total  number  of  a  series  of 
skulls  placed  in  my  hands,  chiefly  by  non-scientists,  who  col- 
lected them  solely  because  of  the  morbidly  curious  or  historic 
interest  attached  to  them  by  virtue  of  the  crimes  committed  by 
their  owners  in  vivo.  The  living  subjects  in  the  series  also  came 
under  my  observation  incidentally.  It  is  worthy  of  comment  that 
even  the  remarkable  series  depicted  in  Lombroso's  atlas  does  not 
present  such  remarkably  aberrant  types  as  does  this  series  of 
studies.  Indeed,  a  search  among  several  thousand  skulls  and 
subjects  taken  at  random  might  not  bring  to  light  so  manv  cases 

517 


5i8 


THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 


of  similarly  pronounced  aberrations  of  contour  and  development. 
The  descriptions  of  these  skulls  and  subjects  will  be  largely 
general.  Details  of  measurements  and  comparison  in  particular 
will  be  omitted.  The  illustrations  are  from  photographs  and 
therefore  accurate. 

The  first  specimen  (Figs.  23  and  24)  is  not  of  great  interest 
from  the  degeneracy  stand-point,  although  deviating  somewhat 
from  the  normal  racial  type.  It  is  presented  chiefly  because  of 
its  perfect  development,  peculiar  history,  and  for  purposes  of 
comparison  with  the  rest  of  the  series.  It  is  a  fine  illustration  of 
the  brachycephalic  Mongolian  type  of  skull. 


Fig.  23. 


Fig.  24. 


The  subject  was  a  Chinese  cigar-maker,  who  was  thoroughly 
civilized  and  quite  prosperous.  Physically,  he  was  a  well- 
developed,  handsome  fellow.  He  became  engaged  to  a  white 
girl,  whose  Mongolian  affinity  weakened  at  the  last  moment, 
and  this,  preying  upon  his  mind,  impelled  him  to  shoot  himself. 
This  was  noteworthy,  as  he  was  the  first  Chinaman  to  commit 
suicide  in  America,  and  there  has  been  but  one  since,  so  far  as 
I  know. 

The  contrast  between  this  skull  and  the  negro  skull,  shown 
in  Figs.  25,  26,  and  27,  is  very  striking.  This  specimen  shows  a 
splendid  development  of  the  jaws  and  teeth,  the  latter  being  com- 
plete in  number  and  perfectly  regular.     Like  the  negro,  the 


TYPES   OF   CRIMINALS  519 

Chinese  is  characterized  by  well-formed  and  strong  jaws  and 
teeth. 

The  characteristic,  relatively  marked  development  of  the 
facial  and  jaw  bones  among  the  Chinese  is  well  shown  by  a 
lateral  view  of  this  skull.  The  disproportionate  development  of 
the  face  and  jaws  in  this  instance  is,  however,  much  above  the 
average  Mongolian  skull.  By  comparing  the  two  views,  the 
brachycephalic  type  of  the  cranium  is  readily  observed.  By 
comparing  this  cranium  with  that  of  the  negro  shown  in  Figs. 
25,  26,  and  2^,  one  is  struck  with  the  wide  difference  between 
the  extreme  types  of  high  and  low  cranial  indices.  This  is 
nowhere  better  shown  than  by  a  comparison  of  marked  Ethio- 
pian and  Mongolian  types. 

On  examination  of  the  crania  of  the  more  degenerate  types 
among  the  Chinese,  it  will  be  found  that  the  tendency  is  towards 
a  high  cranial  index.  The  tendency  of  the  degenerate  types  of 
a  brachycephalic  race  to  become  more  brachycephalic  and  that 
of  a  dolichocephalic  race  to  become  more  dolichocephalic  is 
peculiar,  but  is  borne  out,  so  far  as  my  own  opportunities  for 
study  have  permitted  me  to  observe. 

Aside  from  a  change  in  the  cranial  index,  there  are  seen, 
among  negroes  particularly,  many  peculiar  aberrations  of  form, 
one  of  which  is  shown  in  Figs.  30  and  31.  The  palatal  arch  in 
this  Mongolian  specimen  is  high,  and  the  alveolar  processes 
excessively  developed.    The  cephalic  index  of  this  skull  is  83.9. 

The  next  specimen  (Figs.  25,  26,  and  27)  is  the  most  in- 
teresting illustration  of  the  pure  negro  skull  it  has  ever  been  my 
privilege  to  study. 

The  subject  was  a  negro  criminal  of  the  petty  class,  who 
spent  most  of  his  time  in  correctionary  institutions.  As  might 
be  inferred  from  the  extremely  degenerate  type  of  cranial  de- 
velopment shown,  he  was  of  a  very  low  grade  of  intelligence. 
After  a  very  precarious  existence  he  committed  suicide. 

In  viewing  this  skull  anteriorly,  one  is  at  once  struck  by  the 
immensely  powerful  maxillary  and  malar  development,  as  con- 
trasted with  the  remainder  of  the  cranium.  The  orbits  pro- 
portionately very  capacious.     The  superior  maxilla  is  relatively 


520 


THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 


poorly  developed,  at  least  as  compared  with  the  lower.  This 
inferior  frontal  development,  associated  with  the  pronounced 
facial  development,  is  distinctly  atavistic. 


Fig.  26. 


Fig.  27. 


This  skull  is  the  most  marked  specimen  of  the  dolicho- 
cephalic cranium  I  have  ever  seen.  The  cephalic  index  is  59.9, 
the  extreme  variation,  according-  to  Isaac  Taylor  and  others, 
being  from  58  to  98. 

On  viewing  this  cranium  laterally,  its  resemblance  to  the 
anthropoid  skull  is  very  striking.  This  is  especially  marked 
with  respect  to  the  development  of  the  mastoids,  styloid  apophy- 
ses, and  occipital  protuberance.     The  position  of  the  latter  is 


TYPES   OF   CRIMLNALS  521 

quite  anomalous,  and  the  occipital  bone  is  almost  horizontal. 
Despite  its  extraordinary  development,  the  occipital  bone  is  rela- 
tively small,  both  transversely  and  in  its  vertical  measurements. 
The  distance  from  the  posterior  border  of  the  foramen  magnum 
to  the  superior  occipital  angle  is  only  103  mm. 

On  contrasting  this  with  any  other  of  the  crania  of  this 
series,  the  relative  shortness  of  the  occiput  is  very  noticeable. 
For  example.  Fig.  53,  which  is  a  very  small  specimen,  distin- 
guished rather  by  its  symmetry  than  the  extent  of  its  develop- 
ment, shows  an  occiput  measuring  116  mm.  from  the  foramen 
magnum  to  the  superior  angle  of  the  occipital  bone.  Fig.  27 
shows  the  inferior  surface  of  this  dolichocephalic  specimen,  and 
brings  out  the  massive  development  of  the  processes  and  mus- 
cular attachments  at  the  base  of  the  skull.  It  is  evident  that  the 
muscles  of  the  neck  in  this  case  were  immensely  powerful,  a 
sine  qua  non  where  the  leverage  for  muscular  action  is  so  short 
as  in  this  particular  occiput,  and  a  distinctly  atavistic  phenome- 
non. The  facial  type  in  this  specimen  is  markedly  prognathous 
as  regards  both  upper  and  lower  jaws. 

The  tout  ensemble  in  this  case  is  strongly  suggestive  of  a 
reversion  to  the  anthropoid  type,  which  is  often  the  distinguish- 
ing characteristic  of  the  degenerate  Ethiopian  skull,  criminal  or 
otherwise. 

The  next  specimen  (Figs.  28  and  29)  presents  some  extra- 
ordinary features.  It  is  the  skull  of  a  celebrated  negro  panel- 
worker,  confidence  operator,  and  desperado,  who  at  the  time  of 
his  death  was  the  consort  of  a  notorious  Chicago  courtesan, 
whose  skull  is  shown  in  Figs.  52  and  53. 

This  individual,  after  some  years'  dalliance  with  the  law, 
was  finally  knifed  to  death  in  a  brawl.  A  front  view  of  the 
cranium  shows  the  ordinary  characteristic  negro  facial  type. 
with  the  exception,  perhaps,  that  the  bones  are  exceptionally 
massive  and  well  developed.  The  inferior  maxilla  is  absent,  a 
fact  which  I  greatly  deplore,  as  the  general  cranial  development 
suggests  the  probability  that  the  missing  part  presented  some 
very  interesting  features  for  consideration.  A  lateral  view  of 
this  cranium  shows  the  usual  dolichocephalic  negro  type.     The 


522 


THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 


cranial  index  is  low,  being  71. i.  A  comparison  with  Figs.  25, 
26,  and  27,  however,  shows  the  extreme  degeneracy  of  type  in 
the  latter  to  great  advantage. 

A  view  of  this  skull   (Fig.  29),  after  a  section  of  the  cal- 
varium  has  been  removed,  shows  its  most  interesting  features. 


Fig.  29. 


Fig.  28. 


Skulls  of  such  extreme  thickness,  even  among  negroes,  are  rare. 
The  consistency  of  the  bone  is  very  dense  and  hard,  and  tradi- 
tionally this  negro  was  noted  for  his  butting  propensities.  It  is 
said  that  he  rather  enjoyed  the  impact  of  a  policeman's  club. 

The  massiveness  of  the  bony  development  in  this  case  is  not 
due  to  disease.  The  general  character  of  the  overgrowth  and 
the  consistency  of  the  bone  would  seem  to  support  this  view. 
Syphilis  sometimes  produces  thickening  of  the  cranial  bones,  as 
some  of  Virchow's  and  my  own  (Figs.  63  and  64)  specimens 
show,  but  syphilitic  bone  does  not  present  the  characters  and 
uniformity  present  in  this  case.  The  normal  relatively  great 
thickness  of  the  negro  skull  is  a  primitive  racial  type.  When  it 
is  excessive,  it  is  atavistic. 

At  the  densest  part  of  the  calvarium  this  specimen  measured 
13  mm.  in  thickness,  its  average  thickness  being  11  mm.     A 


TYPES   OF   CRIMINALS 


523 


comparison  with  Fig.  53  readily  shows  how  phenomenal  the 
osseous  development  in  this  case  is. 

The  upper  jaw  and  alveolar  process  in  this  skull  are  well 
developed,  the  only  peculiarity  being  a  low  palatal  vault. 

The  next  specimen  (Figs.  30,  31,  and  32)  is  the  skull  of  a 
negro  who  was  lynched  for  rape.     The  distortion,  asymmetry, 

Fig.  30. 


Fig.  31. 


Fig.  32. 


prognathism,  marked  dolichocephaly,  extreme  smallness  of 
frontal  development,  and  enormous  orbits  are  very  noticeable. 
These  peculiarities  are  such  as  cannot  be  fairly  accounted  for  on 
the  basis  of  accentuation  of  racial  type.     They  are  in  the  main 


524 


THE   DISEASES   OF   SOCIETY 


atavistic,  but  to  a  certain  degree  degenerative  aberrations.  Like 
the  preceding  specimen,  this  skull  is  characterized  by  immense 
thickness  of  the  bones,  unaccountable  by  disease.  In  the  frontis- 
piece of  this  work  is  shown  a  still  more  marked  example  of 
osseous  overgrowth  in  the  skull  of  a  negro  who  was  executed 
for  a  double  murder.  The  entire  series  of  illustrations  of 
criminal  negro  skulls  show  unmistakably  their  similarity  to  the 
anthropoid  type. 

The  next  specimen  (Figs.  33,  34,  and  37)  is  by  far  the 
most  remarkable  skull  I  have  ever  seen.  The  subject  was  a  half- 
breed  Mexican  and  negro,  who  had  left  Mexico  for  the  good  of 
the  country.  While  he  had  never  distinguished  himself  by  any 
startling  act  of  criminality  and  had  managed  to  keep  himself  out 


Fig.  33. 


Fig.  34- 


of  the  clutches  of  the  law,  he  was  identified  with  the  petty  crimi- 
nal class  that  forms  a  prominent  portion  of  all  social  systems, 
and  with  which  Mexico  is  especially  infested.  He  finally  died 
in  an  American  public  hospital,  as  a  result  of  some  acute  disease 
with  cerebral  complications.  The  general  physique  of  this  man 
was  fair,  although  he  presented  a  generally  overgrown  and  loose- 
jointed  appearance.  When  alive  he  was  a  very  peculiar-looking 
individual  indeed,  the  dome-shaped  appearance  of  his  cranium 


I'l^x.      35. 


Fig.  36. 


TYPES   OF   CRIMINALS  525 

being  exaggerated  by  a  luxuriant  crop  of  Icinky  wool,  several 
inches  in  length,  that  stood  straight  out  from  his  head.  Intel- 
lectually he  was  apparently  up  to  the  average  of  the  negro  race, 
but  morally  he  was  decidedly  degenerate.  One  of  his  prominent 
characteristics  was  a  very  irascible  temper,  which  led  him  on 
numerous  occasions  to  commit  assaults. 

This  cranium,  as  is  well  shown  in  the  appended  illustrations, 
is  extremely  brachycephalic ;  indeed,  its  circumferential  outline 
is  almost  perfectly  round,  its  longitudinal  and  transverse  diame- 
ters being  nearly  equal,  and  its  index  (98.1)  a  fraction  above 
Taylor's  maximum  of  98.  The  term  dome-shaped  is  as  nearly 
accurate  as  possible  from  a  descriptive  stand-point.  It  is  a  sin- 
gular fact  that  the  degenerative  type  of  the  African  skull  often 
presents  the  oxycephalic  or  rafter-headed  type,  even  when  the 
dolichocephalous  index  is  pronounced.  The  skull  at  present 
under  consideration  is  distinctly  dome-shaped,  which  corresponds 
not  at  all  with  oxycephaly. 

The  peculiar  conformation  in  this  case  is  evidently  not  the 
result  of  pathologic  conditions  or  mechanical  pressure.  The 
vault  of  the  cranium  is  quite  symmetrically  developed,  although 
the  base  of  the  skull  is  decidedly  asymmetric,  as  will  shortly  be 
shown.  I  know  of  no  mechanical  means  which  might  have 
caused  the  peculiar  dome-like  form  of  this  specimen,  nor  have 
I  been  able  to  find  mechanically  deformed  crania  of  a  similar 
type.  Such  deformities  as  those  presented  by  ancient  European 
skulls,  certain  South  Sea  Islanders,  and  the  Chinook  or  Flathead 
Indians,  are  quite  familiar  types  of  mechanically  deformed  skulls. 
Certain  specimens  found  in  ancient  Peruvian  graves  are  almost 
precisely  identical  with  the  characteristic  Chinook  type,  and  sug- 
gest the  possibility  of  a  common  origin  of  the  two  races.  The 
flattened  type  is  fairly  well  shown  by  Figs.  35  and  36. 

There  are  several  interesting  features  in  connection  with 
the  skull  under  consideration.  One  of  the  most  striking  is  the 
extreme  shallowness  of  the  orbits.  This  is  evident  on  com- 
parison with  some  of  the  other  types  described  in  this  series,  the 
measurements  being  46  mm.  from  the  upper  margin  of  the  orbit 
to  the  optic  foramen,  while  in  the  Indian  and  negro  skulls  in  this 


526  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

series  the  orbits  measure  52  and  55  mm.  in  depth.  The  outer 
walls  of  the  orbits  encroach  upon  the  cavities,  giving  them  a 
still  more  marked  appearance  of  shallowness. 

The  inferior  maxilla  also  presents  some  peculiarities.  The 
coronoid  processes  are  very  small  and  short,  the  body  long,  and 
the  angles  very  oblique.  The  inferior  alveolar  process  is  ex- 
cessively developed.  The  same  is  true  of  the  alveolar  process 
of  the  superior  maxilla,  it  being  so  situated  on  the  outer  surface 
of  the  jaw  that  the  teeth  were  necessarily  tipped  in  to  facilitate 
occlusion  with  the  lower  teeth.  The  central  incisors  were  evi- 
dently lost  in  early  life,  the  alveolus  being  absorbed  and  the 
border  of  the  jaw  being  only  one-eighth  of  an  inch  thick  at  this 
point.  The  palatal  vault  is  very  low,  and  the  general  develop- 
ment of  the  jaws  imperfect. 

There  is  a  marked  deflection  of  the  vomer  and  ossse  nasi, 
evidently  of  non-traumatic  origin,  and  due  to  excessive  develop- 
ment of  the  osseous  and  cartilaginous  structures  of  the  septum 
nasi.  The  nasal  spine  is  enormously  developed.  As  already 
noted,  the  cranial  index  in  this  case  is  extraordinarily  high. 

Fig.  zt. 


being  slightly  above  the  maximum  given  by  most  anthropolo- 
gists ;  the  type  is  as  marked  in  the  direction  of  a  brachycephalic 
index  as  is  the  specimen  shown  in  Figs.  25,  26,  and  27  in  the 
direction  of  a  low  or  dolichocephalic  index. 


TYPES   OF   CRIMINALS 


527 


Fig.  37  shows  the  inferior  surface  of  the  skull.  A  glance 
suffices  to  show  its  remarkable  asymmetry.  The  foramen  mag- 
num is  almost  entirely  to  the  left  of  the  median  line.  A  line 
drawn  through  the  centre  of  the  foramen  traverses  the  median 
line  of  this  surface  at  an  angle  of  about  forty-five  degrees.  The 
centre  of  the  anterior  border  of  the  foramen  is  situated  at  76.5 
mm.  from  the  left,  and  58  mm.  from  the  right,  mastoid.  The 
centre  of  the  posterior  border  of  the  foramen  is  64  mm.  and  61 
mm.  from  the  left  and  right  mastoids  respectively.  The  margin 
of  the  foramen  is  extremely  thin,  and  the  occipital  ridges  very 
prominent. 

Figs.  38  and  39  show  another  illustration  of  the  dome-shaped 
brachycephalic  cranium  occasionally  met  with  in  the  negro  de- 
generate of  mixed  blood. 


Fig.  38. 


Fig.  39. 


The  subject  is  a  mulatto,  about  twenty-three  years  of  age, 
who  is  doing  time  at  Joliet  for  attempted  murder.  He  is  a  surly, 
truculent  fellow,  of  a  low  grade  of  intelligence,  and  inclined  to 
be  unruly.  He  is  at  present  suffering  from  a  mild  attack  of 
syphilis.  The  general  form  of  the  cranium  resembles  the  type 
shown  in  Figs.  33  and  34. 


528  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

The  facial  bones,  jaws,  and  teeth  in  this  case  were  extremely 
well  developed,  and  the  palatal  vault  normal.  There  was  no 
history  of  mechanical  compression,  and  as  the  subject  was  a 
native  of  Tennessee  such  a  cause  is  improbable.  The  cephalic 
index  was  76.7. 

The  dome-like  form  of  this  cranium  will  be  more  evident  on 
comparison  of  its  principal  measurements  with  those  of  a  skull 
of  average  development.  A  comparison  was  made  with  that  of 
one  of  the  white  orderlies  in  the  prison  hospital,  a  man  of  fine 
physique  and  good  cranial  development.  It  was  found  that, 
while  the  measurement  over  the  vertex  was  the  same  as  that  of 
the  negro,  39.5  c,  the  circumferential  measurement  was  58.5  c. 

Fig.  40  is  a  five-year-old  negro  boy,  who  is  a  duplicate  in 
black  of  Jesse  Pomeroy,  a  name  that  is  a  synonym  for  cruelty. 
This  boy  set  fire  to  his  little  sister's  dress,  and  danced  in  glee  at 
her  dying  agonies.  He  decoyed  an  elder  brother  to  a  secluded 
place  and  stabbed  him  several  times  with  a  butcher's  knife. 
Later  he  put  the  barrel  of  a  pistol  in  the  mouth  of  a  three-year- 
old  brother  and  blew  the  top  of  his  head  off.  Discounting  all 
features  that  are  racially  typic,  it  requires  no  craniologic  expert- 
ness  to  observe  the  imperfect  development  and  animal-like  char- 
acteristics of  this  subject.  The  lack  of  frontal  development,  mal- 
formed ears  and  massive  jaws  are  especially  in  evidence. 

Fig.  41  shows  the  skull  of  a  tramp  and  petty  thief.  There 
was  a  history  also  of  assault  and  attempt  to  kill.  Death  resulted 
from  cerebral  gumma.  The  defective  frontal  and  disproportion- 
ate temporal  development  are  very  noticeable.  The  enormous 
malar  development  is  an  especially  interesting  point  for  con- 
sideration. The  orbits  are  enormous  and  show  a  marked  con- 
trast with  some  of  the  others  of  the  series. 

The  subject  shown  in  Figs.  42  and  43  is  very  interesting. 
He  is  about  twenty-one  years  of  age,  a  seaman  by  profession, 
and  a  criminal  of  the  petty  sort  by  occupation.  He  was  born  in 
the  Island  of  Martinique,  his  father  being  a  half-breed  Portu- 
guese and  negro,  and  his  mother  a  full-blood  black.  The  father 
was  a  drunken  loafer  and  the  mother  a  thief  and  prostitute. 
No  history  of  brothers  or  sisters  is  obtainable.    He  thinks  he  had 


Fig.  40. 


Fig.  41. 


/.    . 


Fig.  42. 


Fig.  43. 


TYPES   OF   CRIMINALS  529 

some  "  head  trouble"  as  a  child,  but  there  is  no  recollection  of 
any  head  injury.  Has  frequent  headaches.  Never  has  had 
"  fits." 

The  subject  himself  is  dull  of  wit,  but  possessed  of  a  certain 
degree  of  native  cunning.  Ordinarily  stupid  in  his  mental  atti- 
tude, he  is  given  to  attacks  of  uncontrollable  and  vicious  rage, 
during  w^hich  he  is  dangerous  to  those  about  him.  His  family 
said  he  was  "  mad,"  He  is  undersized  and  suffers  from  tuber- 
culosis of  the  spine.  He  says  that  his  back  has  always  been 
crooked. 

The  cranial  conformation  is  most  peculiar.  Brachycephaly 
is  marked,  and  a  lateral  view  is  suggestive  of  the  dome-like 
crania  of  Figs.  33,  34,  and  38.  The  anterior  view  gives  a  very 
different  impression,  however,  and  shows  with  especial  emphasis 
the  lack  of  frontal  development.  The  term  scaphocephalous 
would  perhaps  fit  the  cranial  conformation  better  than  it  does 
most  cases  to  which  it  is  applied.  There  is  distinct  flattening  of 
the  occiput  and  depression  of  the  vertex.  The  ears  are  very  un- 
equally placed.  The  temporal  prominences  are  mainly  due  to  an 
immense  hypertrophy  of  the  temporal  muscles,  although  there  is 
a  corresponding  prominence  of  the  skull.  The  movement  of 
these  muscles  during  mastication  is  phenomenally  active.  The 
measurements  of  this  subject's  cranium  were  not  taken. 

The  next  specimen  (Figs.  44,  45,  and  46)  is  the  skull  of  a 
noted  Western  criminal  and  desperado,  who  was  lynched  for 
train-wrecking  and  murder  in  Wyoming  a  number  of  years  ago. 
The  conduct  of  this  man  during  the  lynching  stamped  him  as  a 
bravo  of  the  most  hardened  type.  An  attempt  was  made  to 
induce  him  to  relate  the  particulars  of  a  murder  in  which  he  had 
participated,  the  wife  of  the  murdered  man  being  present  at  the 
hanging  and  anxious  to  learn  the  details  of  her  husband's  death. 
To  the  persuasive  efforts  of  the  "  regulators,"  and  the  tears  and 
entreaties  of  the  widow  of  his  victim,  he  replied,  "  D — n  it, 
you'll  hang  me  if  I  tell,  and  you'll  hang  me  if  I  don't.  So  here 
goes,"  saying  which,  he  deliberately  kicked  the  barrel  upon  which 
he  was  standing  from  under  himself,  and  thus  saved  his  execu- 
tioners all  further  trouble. 

34 


530 


THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 


The  occipital  region  in  this  cranium  is  excessively  developed, 
prominent  and  bulging,  especially  on  the  left  of  the  median  line. 
The  occipital  protuberance  is  situated  about  8  mm.  to  the  left. 
The  parietal  eminences  are  very  asymmetric,  the  right  being 


Fig.  44. 


Fig.  45. 


Fig.  46. 


very  prominent  and  of  irregular  contour.  The  palatal  vault  is 
of  medium  height,  the  teeth  regular,  and  the  maxillae  well 
developed.    The  cephalic  index  is  77.8. 

Viewed  from  above  (Fig.  46),  this  cranium  shows  an  un- 
symmetric  outline,  but  on  comparing  it  with  Fig.  51,  one  would 
be  impressed  with  its  comparative  symmetry. 

Figs.  47  and  48  show  the  skull  of  a  burglar  and  desperado, 
who  was  shot  while  resisting  arrest.    The  subject  was  Irish,  and 


Fig.  47. 


Fig.  48. 


TYPES   OF   CRIMINALS 


531 


about  forty  years  of  age.  Frontal  development  is  very  defective 
and  the  cranium  sub-microcephalic.  The  massive  prognathous 
jaws,  prominent  malar  prominences,  hu^e  supra-orbital  ridges, 
large  mastoid  prominences,  the  short,  horizontal,  inferior  occipi- 
tal plane,  and  the  extremely  marked  occipital  ridges  give  a 
distinctively  anthropoidal  aspect  to  this  specimen. 

The  next  specimen  (Figs.  49,  50,  and  51)  is  one  of  the  most 
interesting  of  the  series  from  the  stand-point  of  degeneracy,  and 
is  certainly  the  least  symmetric.  If  it  were  possible  to  conceive 
of  a  special  criminal  type  of  cranium,  this  would  be  in  many 
respects  an  ideal  illustration.  The  subject  was  lynched  at  Car- 
bon, Wyoming,  early  in  the  seventies,  for  an  attempt  to  wreck 
a  train  at  Medicine  Bow.  In  this  attempt  he  was  assisted  by  the 
individual  represented  in  Figs.  44,  45,  and  46. 


Fig.  49. 


Fig.  50. 


The  extremely  disproportionate  breadth  of  this  cranium  is 
well  shown  by  the  illustrations.  The  meagre  development  of 
the  frontal  region  is  very  noticeable.  On  viewing  the  skull  from 
above,  the  peculiar  twisted  appearance,  which  may  be  observed 
in  the  cranial  type  of  the  degenerate  in  general,  will  be  observed. 
The  orbits  are  relatively  large,  and  the  face,  as  a  whole,  of  a 
decidedly  "  squatty"  appearance.  The  absence  of  the  inferior 
maxilla  is  to  be  regretted,  although,  considering  the  vicissitudes 
which  the  skull  has  experienced,  its  otherwise  perfect  state  of 
preservation  is  remarkable.  After  the  lynching  the  body  was 
buried  in  a  hastily  improvised  and  shallow  grave,  from  which 
it  was  very  promptly  resurrected  by  those  scavengers  of  tlic 


532  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

prairie,  the  coyotes.  The  skull  was  finally  found  by  a  railroad 
employee,  and  subsequently  used  as  a  paper  weight  for  some 
years.  Judging  from  the  conformation  of  the  cranial  and  facial 
bones,  the  lower  maxilla  was  probably  well  developed  but 
asymmetrical. 

The  relatively  defective  frontal  development  of  this  skull  is 
its  most  striking  feature  when  viewed  anteriorly,  and  is  best 
shown  by  comparison  with  Figs.  25,  26,  and  28.  In  Fig.  25  the 
extreme  breadth  is  122  mm.,  and  the  extreme  length  195.5  mm., 
while  the  frontal  breadth  is  95  mm.  In  the  skull  under  con- 
sideration, however,  although  the  extreme  breadth  is  149  mm. 
and  the  extreme  length  but  171  mm.,  the  frontal  breadth  is  only 
90  mm.  The  great  disproportion  in  the  measurements  is  at 
once  obvious.  It  is  not  compensated  for  by  increased  longitudinal 
development  of  the  frontal  bone.  In  Fig.  28,  the  greatest  breadth 
is  131  mm.,  and  the  greatest  length  181. 5  mm.,  yet  the  transverse 
frontal  diameter  is  95  mm. 

The  twisted  appearance  of  this  skull  is  most  evident  on  com- 
parison of  the  parietal  eminences.  These  are  very  prominent  on 
both  sides,  the  left  being  much  the  larger.  The  occipital  region 
is  greatly  deformed  and  exceptionally  prominent,  the  bulging 
being  most  marked  at  the  left  of  the  median  line.  The  asym- 
metry of  development  is  shown  by  comparative  measurement  of 
the  distance  of  each  parietal  eminence  from  the  occipital  pro- 
tuberance. This  measures  on  the  right  side  132  mm.,  and  on 
the  left  only  119  mm.  The  squatty,  animal-like  type  of  this 
cranium  is  shown  by  comparison  with  some  of  the  others  of  the 
series. 

Fig.  51  shows  the  circumferential  outline  of  this  specimen 
viewed  from  above.  By  comparing  the  quadrants  of  this  illus- 
tration the  phenomenal  asymmetry  of  development  is  easily  seen. 

The  superior  maxilla  in  this  skull  is  well  developed,  although 
the  alveolar  process  shows  an  inferior  development.  The  palatal 
arch  is  exceedingly  low.  The  left  superior  maxilla  is  much 
smaller  than  the  right.  The  palatal  processes  show  great  asym- 
metry, the  right  being  16  mm.  and  the  left  but  5  mm.  in  breadth. 
The  cephalic  index  is  87.13. 


TYPES   OF   CRIMINALS  533 

Fig.  52  shows  the  skull  of  a  once  notorious  member  of  the 
Chicago  demi-monde.  She  was  a  very  tall  woman,  of  mixed 
Indian  and  white  blood.  The  cephalic  index  shows  what  might 
be  inferred  from  the  appearance  of  the  cuts, — a  decided  dolicho- 

FiG.  51. 

Fig.  52. 


cephalic  type.  This  specimen  is  the  most  symmetric  of  the 
series,  with  the  exception  of  the  Sioux  skull  next  to  be  described, 
and  whether  coincidental  or  not,  the  fact  remains  that  the  sub- 
ject presented  a  higher  type  of  intellectuality  while  living  than 
any  other  of  this  series.  The  skull  is  nevertheless  of  a  degen- 
erate type,  as  shown  by  its  extreme  tenuity,  and  markedly 
dolichocephalic  index. 

Fig.  53  shows  the  extreme  thinness  of  the  calvarium,  which 
was  at  the  point  of  section  only  3  mm.  in  thickness.  A  striking 
feature  of  this  skull  is  its  freedom  from  prominences,  the  sur- 
face being  uniformly  rounded  and  smooth.  In  this  respect  it 
differs  greatly  from  another  cranium  of  a  prostitute  in  the  same 
series,  but  of  which,  unfortunately,  I  have  no  illustrations.  In 
this  case  there  was  an  excessive  development  of  the  occipital 
bone,  the  enlargement  being  asymmetric  and  most  marked  upon 
the  left  of  the  median  line.  The  right  parietal  eminence  was 
excessively  and  disproportionately  developed.  The  cranial  index 
(67.9)  was  markedly  dolichocephalic. 

The  jaw  in  this  case  is  poorly  developed  but  fairly  well 
formed.     I  do  not  believe  the  extreme  tenuitv  of  the  skull  is 


534  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

pathologic.  Its  general  lightness  of  bone  and  symmetry  are  not 
consistent  with  the  existence  of  such  changes  as  might  produce 
absorption  and  thinning.  The  markedly  dolichocephalic  type  of 
this  skull  is  interesting  in  view  of  the  strain  of  Indian  blood  in 

Fig.  S3- 


the  subject.  As  has  already  been  observed,  the  degenerate  type 
in  dolichocephalic  crania  is  in  the  direction  of  a  still  lower 
cephalic  index,  and  in  this  instance  the  admixture  of  Indian  blood 
evidently  determined  the  degenerative  type.  This  observation 
would  appear  to  be  contradicted  by  the  case  shown  in  Figs.  33, 
34,  and  35.  In  this  case,  however,  there  was  an  admixture  of 
negro  and  Mexican  blood,  with  a  resultant  degeneracy  of  form 
in  general  as  well  as  in  the  cephalic  index.  This  case,  in  fact, 
partakes  in  some  respects  of  the  character  of  a  teratological 
rather  than  an  atavistic  type, — at  least  so  far  as  facial  develop- 
ment is  concerned. 

A  comparison  of  the  prostitute's  skull  with  the  female  In- 
dian type  next  presented  shows  a  marked  difference  in  the 
cranial  index,  the  disparity  being  7.07.  Even  the  negro  in  Fig. 
25  is  less  dolichocephalic  than  this  specimen. 

The  next  specimen  (Figs.  54  and  55),  is  the  cranium  of  a 
full-blood  squaw  of  the  Uncapapa  Sioux,  who  was  the  wife  of 
one  of  the  leading  malcontents  in  a  serious  Indian  outbreak  and 


TYPES   OF   CRIMINALS  535 

of  the  better  type  of  Indian  development.    It  is  presented  merely 
for  purposes  of  comparison. 

The   specimen   is   exceptionally    symmetric   and   moderately 
dolichocephalic.    Aside  from  points  of  contrast,  there  is  little  of 

Fig.  54.  Fig.  55. 


interest  to  be  said  of  it  in  connection  with  the  present  series. 
The  subject  was  as  intelligent  as  the  average  of  the  better  class 
of  her  people. 

Fig.  55  shows  the  same  skull  in  lateral  view.  Its  symmetric 
outline  is  quite  noticeable.    The  cephalic  index  is  74.16. 

The  superior  maxilla  presents  arrested  development.  The 
vault  is  of  medium  height,  and  the  alveolar  processes  well  de- 
veloped. It  will  be  found  that  in  the  Indian,  as  in  all  primitive 
races,  a  well-formed  palate  and  regular  teeth  are  the  rule.  It 
would  be  interesting  to  observe  the  effects  of  civilization  on  the 
Indian  in  this  regard. 

Figs.  56  and  57,  and  58  and  59  show  the  skull  of  George  Kelly, 
hanged  for  a  double  murder  committed  at  Wyoming,  Minne- 
sota, in  1896.  He  confessed  to  one  of  my  professional  friends, 
whom  he  shot  at  the  time  of  the  double  killing,  that  he  had 
previously  committed  a  number  of  murders.  The  peculiar  con- 
formation of  this  skull  attracted  my  attention  before  I  knew  any- 
thing of  its  history. 

The  subject  was  over  six  feet  tall  and  weighed  about  185 
pounds.  He  was  very  muscular,  spare,  and  raw-boned.  The 
skull  is  markedly  dolichocephalic,  asymmetric,  and  degenerate 


536  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

in  type.  The  cephalic  index  was  70.6.  The  extreme  lightness 
of  the  bones  is  at  once  noticeable  in  handling  the  specimen. 
The  jaw  is  moderately  prognathous  and  fairly  symmetric.  The 
palatal  arch  is  saddle-shaped,  but  not  extremely  so.  The  cranial 
capacity  is  much  below  the  normal  average.  The  dwarfed  frontal 
development  is  obvious.  The  supra-orbital  ridges  are  very  promi- 
nent. The  occipital  tuberosity  and  ridges  are  very  large  and  the 
prominences  marked.  The  inferior  plane  of  the  occiput  is  rela- 
tively long  and  horizontal.  This,  as  stated  in  connection  with 
the  specimen  shown  in  Figs.  25,  26,  and  27,  is  an  unmistakable 
evidence  of  atavism.  The  septum  nasi  is  greatly  deflected.  The 
illustrations,  the  front  view  especially,  clearly  show  the  twisted, 
asymmetric  form  of  the  skull.  The  lightness  of  the  bones  and 
the  inferior  development  of  the  face  and  jaws  are  a  marked 
deviation  from  the  normal  Hibernian  type. 

There  was  a  little  of  the  dime-novel  quality  to  Kelly's  crimi- 
nality. He  was  given  to  boasting  of  his  various  crimes,  and 
made  much  over  the  fact  that  he  was  predestined  to  *'  die  with 
his  boots  on,"  He  was  an  exception  to  the  rule  that  the  alleged 
desperado  who  is  given  to  bluster  and  rhodomontade  is  not 
especially  dangerous.  Kelly  was  very  anxious  to  make  a  record 
for  bravery  on  the  scaffold,  and  invited  my  friend,  the  doctor,  to 
witness  the  execution  so  that  he  might  see  how  men  of  the  Kelly 
stamp  could  die. 

The  idea  of  being  other  than  what  he  was  had  probably  never 
occurred  to  Kelly,  and  conscience  was  with  him  an  unknown 
quantity.  He  exhibited  no  remorse,  and  died  as  he  had  lived, 
a  moral  pervert. 

Figs.  60  and  61  show  a  male  skull ;  Caucasian ;  pauper ; 
history  unknown.  This  specimen  shows  many  distinct  features 
of  degeneracy  and  atavism.  The  front  view  shows  marked 
asymmetry,  especially  of  the  jaws.  The  twisted  contour  and 
flaring  angles  of  the  inferior  maxilla  are  very  noticeable,  espe- 
cially on  the  right  side,  on  which  the  excessive  development  is 
located.  The  orbits  are  small  and  relatively  deep.  The  facial 
bones  in  general  are  not  well  developed,  with  exception  of  the 
malar  prominences,  which  are  developed  disproportionately  to 


Fig.  56. 


Fig.  57. 


Fig.  58. 


Fig.  59. 


Fig.  6o. 


Fig.  6i. 


Fig.  62. 


Fig.  63. 


Fig.  64. 


Fig.  65. 


Fig.  66. 


TYPES   OF   CRIMINALS  537 

the  rest  of  the  face.  The  frontal  development  is  very  low.  The 
lateral  view  of  this  skull  shows  some  very  extraordinary  features 
of  development.  The  outline  is  distinctly  anthropoidal,  prog- 
nathism being  especially  marked.  Such  a  degree  of  prognathism 
is  exceptionally  seen.  The  palatal  processes  of  the  superior 
maxilla  are  very  unsymmetrical,  and  it  has  the  flaring  contour 
that  would  naturally  be  expected  in  so  prognathous  a  jaw.  The 
disparity  in  development  of  the  superior  maxillse  is  well  shown 
by  examination  of  the  palate.  The  relative  atrophy  of  the  left 
side  is,  however,  doubtless  due,  to  a  certain  extent,  to  the  loss  of 
a  number  of  teeth.  The  supra-orbital  ridges  are  disproportion- 
ately developed.  The  lack  of  development  of  the  frontal  region 
is  shown  especially  well  by  the  lateral  view  of  the  skull.  The 
lateral  contour  also  accentuates  the  atavistic  features  of  the  skull. 
The  mastoid  and  styloid  processes  are  disproportionately  de- 
veloped and  set  at  a  very  oblique  angle  as  compared  with  the 
average  skull.  Both  the  inferior  and  superior  planes  of  the 
occipital  bone  are  shorter  than  the  average,  the  inferior  occipital 
plane  being  very  horizontal.  The  processes  for  muscular  at- 
tachment are  very  marked.  The  vertex  shows  posteriorly  a 
longitudinal  central  ridge  corresponding  to  the  sagittal  suture, 
constituting  a  moderate  oxycephaly.  The  cephalic  index  is 
78.4. 

Fig.  62  shows  an  excellent  specimen  of  a  hydrocephalic  skull. 
There  was  an  obscure  history  of  congenital  syphilis.  The  lack 
of  proportionate  facial  development  characteristic  of  these  enor- 
mous skulls  is  well  shown  in  this  specimen.  The  subject  be- 
longed to  the  pauper  class.  Nothing  is  known  as  to  the  moral 
status. 

Figs.  63  and  64  emphasize  the  necessity  of  a  careful  differ- 
entiation of  anomalies  of  cranial  development  from  deformities 
resulting  from  disease.  These  crania  are  from  individuals  of  the 
pauper  class,  and  show  the  effects  of  acquired  syphilis  in  mal- 
forming  the  skull.  The  skull  shown  in  Fig.  63  is  an  excellent 
illustration  of  the  manner  in  which  syphilis  may  either  build  up 
or  destroy  bone.  This  skull  is  very  heavy  from  osseous  hyper- 
plasia and  studded  with  ivory  exostoses.     In  the  right  orbit  is 


538  THE    DISEASES    GF   SOCIETY 

seen  a  distinct  osteoma.  The  right  ramus  of  the  lower  jaw 
shows  the  destructive  effect  of  syphilitic  necrosis. 

The  skull  shown  in  Fig.  64  is  osteoporotic  and  very  light. 
Just  above  the  right  orbit  and  the  glabella  may  be  noted  the 
results  of  syphilitic  caries.  The  frontal  sinuses  are  enormously 
dilated,  and  the  right  supra-orbital  ridge  so  enlarged  as  to  form 
a  distinct  tumor. 

I  consider  these  syphilitic  skulls  the  choicest  in  my  collec- 
tion.    It  would  certainly  be  difficult  to  duplicate  them. 

Figs.  65  and  66  show,  for  purposes  of  comparison,  the  skele- 
ton of  a  female  Chippewa  Indian  dwarf,  height  1081  mm.,  in  the 
possession  of  the  Army  Medical  Museum  at  Washington,  D.  C. 
The  subject  was  about  eighty-five  years  of  age.  The  cranium 
was  hydrocephalic.  The  cephalic  index  is  91.08.  Its  measure- 
ments are  striking: 

Capacity  of  skull 2760  c.c 

Longitudinal   diameter    202  mm. 

Transverse  diameter    184  mm. 

Vertical  diameter  152  mm. 

Circumference    662  mm. 

Glabella  to  occipital  protuberance 462  mm. 

Bi-zygomatic  diameter    134  mm. 

Facial  angle   103 

As  the  average  capacity  of  normal  skulls  is  only  about  1500 
c.c,  the  enormous  size  of  this  specimen  is  evident. 

Fig.  67  is  the  portrait  of  Christopher  Merry,  hanged  in 
Chicago  for  the  brutal  murder  of  his  wife.  The  woman  was 
beaten  to  death  and  her  body  hidden  by  Merry  and  a  confederate. 
The  murder  was  the  culmination  of  a  series  of  beatings,  ex- 
tending over  a  period  of  some  years.  The  description  herewith 
appended  is  based  upon  a  report  made  by  me  to  the  late  Governor 
Tanner,  of  Illinois,  apropos  of  an  effort  made  to  secure  his  inter- 
ference with  the  sentence  of  the  court. 

The  general  contour  of  the  head,  as  viewed  from  the  front, 
is  fairly  symmetric,  and  the  face,  while  plainly  showing  the 
hardened,  desperate  character  of  the  man,  is  not  unprepossessing. 
.\s  seen  from  the  rear,  the  head  is  quite  asymmetric.    The  face 


Fig.  67. 


Fig.  68. 


CHRISTOPHKR    MKKRY. 


CHRISTOPMKR    MKRKV. 


Fig.  69. 


I'lc.  70. 


TYPES   OF   CRIMINALS  539 

is  distinctly  asymmetric,  its  one-sidedness  being  accentuated  by 
a  bony  swelling  just  external  to  the  left  orbit,  that  marks  the  site 
of  an  injury  received  in  a  fight  some  years  ago.  The  zygoma 
was  probably  fractured.  The  inferior  maxilla  partakes  of  the 
left-sided  asymmetry  of  the  face,  the  distance  between  the  median 
facial  line  to  the  inferior  maxillary  angle  being  one-quarter  inch 
greater  on  the  left  side.  On  the  superior  portion  of  the  temporal 
region,  just  to  the  left  of  the  median  line  of  the  vertex,  is  a  scar 
about  one  inch  in  length,  the  result  of  a  blow  received  four 
years  ago.  The  pericranium  is  thickened  at  this  point  and  the 
surface  of  the  skull  slightly  elevated.  The  attorneys  for  the 
defence  had  hoped  to  show  some  connection  between  the  injury 
that  produced  this  scar  and  mental  aberration.  The  prisoner, 
by  the  way,  vigorously  resented  any  suspicion  of  his  sanity,  and 
combated  all  attempts  at  a  defence  along  that  line.  Just  pos- 
terior to  the  scar  is  a  slight  depression.  This  is  merely  an 
irregularity  of  development. 

The  frontal  region  of  the  skull,  and  therefore  the  forebrain, 
shows  inferior  development,  especially  upon  the  left  side. 

The  posterior  part  of  the  skull  (Fig.  68)  shows  marked 
asymmetry.  The  right  parietal  region  is  relatively  flattened,  and 
the  left  prominent  and  bulging,  as  may  be  seen  even  in  the 
photograph,  although  it  was  carelessly  taken,  without  proper 
supervision.  The  transparietal  diameter  shows  a  marked  rela- 
tive narrowing  of  the  skull  at  this  point. 

The  ears  are  unsymmetric,  but  well  formed  and  of  moderate 
size.  The  left  is  the  smaller,  slightly  flattened  as  compared  with 
the  right  and  placed  lower.  The  natural  conformation  of  the 
nose  is  a  matter  of  conjecture,  so  often  has  it  been  broken  in 
pugilistic  encounters,  although  it  seems  fairly  symmetric  in  the 
photograph.  The  chin  is  of  moderate  size,  firm  but  unobtrusive, 
and  attractive  rather  than  otherwise.  The  facial  angle  is  rela- 
tively low. 

The  most  striking  feature  of  Merry's  physiognomy  were  his 
eyes,  which  would  have  attracted  the  attention  of  even  the  casual 
observer.  Large,  brilliant,  clear,  and  cold,  with  a  directness  of 
gaze   unusual   in   men   situated   in   his   unliapjiy   circumstances, 


540  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

they  plainly  showed  the  character  of  the  man.  The  possessor  of 
such  eyes  is  not  the  sort  of  person  with  whom  it  is  safe  to  play 
at  cross  purposes.  Taken  all  in  all,  Merry  was  above  the  aver- 
age in  point  of  good  looks.  Hysterical  women  grow  maudlin 
over  worse-looking  criminals. 

So  far  as  his  mental  status  was  concerned,  a  saner  man  than 
Christopher  Merry  never  came  before  a  court.  Desperate,  reck- 
less, vicious,  and  with  the  tenacity  of  a  bull-dog,  the  man  was 
nevertheless  above  the  average  in  point  of  intelligence.  Under 
favorable  circumstances  he  might  have  made  his  mark  in  a  more 
genteel  fashion  than  by  wife  murder.  His  uncontrollable  tem- 
per, while  to  a  certain  degree  inborn,  was  largely  the  product  of 
the  environment  in  which  he  lived.  He  was  neither  better  nor 
worse  than  any  border-line  degenerate  is  likely  to  become  if 
never  subjected  to  the  slightest  check  to  his  evil  propensities 
during  childhood  and  youth.  Society  did  nothing  to  mould 
Merry  into  a  useful  citizen.  Society  paid  the  expense  of  a  prose- 
cution and  execution,  but  Merry  himself  paid  the  chief  portion 
of  society's  debt  with  his  life. 

Figs.  69  and  70  show  the  portrait  of  a  negro,  who  was  tried 
in  Chicago  and  sentenced  to  fourteen  years'  imprisonment  for 
murder.  He  was  a  deaf-mute,  employed  in  a  barber-shop.  He 
had  a  quarrel  with  his  employer  over  two  dollars  he  claimed  was 
due  him,  rushed  out  of  the  shop,  secured  a  revolver,  returned 
and  shot,  not  only  his  employer,  but  an  innocent  customer  who 
happened  to  be  in  the  shop  at  the  time.  The  evidence  went  to 
show  that  the  murderer  could  neither  read  nor  write,  and  the 
defence  endeavored  to  establish  that  he  was  irresponsible  and 
ignorant  both  of  the  nature  of  his  act  and  the  consequences  of  it. 
The  jury  showed  its  lack  of  common  sense  by  "  hedging"  and 
recommending  fourteen  years'  imprisonment. 

It  is  obvious  that  if  this  subject  was  absolutely  irresponsible 
at  all  times,  or  even  at  the  time  of  commission  of  the  act,  no 
sentence  whatever  should  have  been  imposed.  Punishment  of 
such  criminals  is  worse  than  useless.  If  the  protection  of  society 
was  the  dominant  impulse  of  the  jury,  and  the  prisoner  was 
believed  to  be  irresponsible,  he  should  have  been  consigned  to  an 


TYPES   OF   CRIMINALS  541 

asylum  and  kept  there  so  long  as  he  was  dangerous  to  the  com- 
munity ;  which  in  his  case  would  have  meant  for  life.  If  he  was 
held  to  be  responsible,  then  he  should  have  received  the  full 
penalty  of  the  law. 

The  subject  is  a  defective  of  an  exaggerated  form.  From 
my  examination  of  him,  I  was  led  to  suspect  that  he  is  more 
than  ordinarily  cunning,  and  has  more  intelligence  than  is  sus- 
pected, although  his  intellectuality  is  almost  a  negative  quantity. 
As  an  illustration  of  his  cunning,  I  will  cite  his  professed 
abhorrence  of  gambling  while  at  the  jail,  despite  the  fact  that  he 
is  known  to  be  an  inveterate  gambler  and  very  expert  at  all 
gambling  games.  His  shrewdness  in  money  matters  and  his 
knowledge  of  human  nature  are  said  to  be  remarkable  by  the 
denizens  of  the  "  levee,"  where  he  was  usually  to  be  found  prior 
to  his  arrest.  As  one  man  expressed  it,  "  He  is  a  dead  wise 
dummy,  smarter  than  a  whip,  but  none  of  us  guys  will  testify 
agin  a  poor  devil  like  that."  He  has  a  reputation  as  a  "  bad, 
dangerous  nigger,"  his  viciousness  and  ill-temper  being  well 
known.  Prior  to  coming  to  Chicago  he  is  said  to  have  stabbed 
a  boy  in  Louisville.  Numerous  witnesses  inform  me  that  he  was' 
wont  to  assault,  with  razor,  pistol,  or  club,  persons  who  offended 
him.  He  has  a  history  of  epilepsy,  which  lends  color  to  the 
view  that  his  homicidal  mania  is  akin  to  the  furor  epilcpticus, — 
possibly  the  "  epileptic  equivalent."  He  has  never  been  known  to 
steal  anything.  He  seems  to  have  become  attached  to  one  of  his 
keepers,  and  has  learned  the  prison  rules  very  thoroughly.  The 
keepers  consider  him  bright,  and  quick  to  learn  from  object- 
lessons,  and  his  memory  seems  excellent.  He  enjoys  watching 
entertainments  among  the  prisoners. 

Taken  all  in  all,  a  more  dangerous  subject  never  ran  at  large. 
That  he  knew  the  nature  both  of  his  act  and  its  consequences  is 
probable.  His  securing  the  revolver,  his  knowledge  of  its  use, 
his  knowledge  of  property  rights  and  resentment  of  infringe- 
ment upon  his  own,  and  his  keen  knowledge  of  gambling  and 
money  values,  are  alone  suggestive  of  sufficient  intelligence  to 
enable  him  to  understand  the  nature  of  his  act.  although  they  in 
no  way  prove  him  responsible  at  the  time  of  its  commission,  nor 


542  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

that  he  is  not  a  mental  defective,  as  all  untrained  deaf-mutes  are. 
His  associates  of  the  levee  state  that  he  was  familiar  with  every 
fight  that  occurred  in  his  district,  and  frequently  depicted  by 
signs  the  arrest  and  incarceration  of  the  participants. 

At  the  end  of  the  fourteen  years'  imprisonment,  this  subject 
is  likely  to  be  quite  as  dangerous  to  society  as  he  ever  was.  As 
he  is  a  negro,  and  has  arrived  at  the  age  of  about  thirty,  it  is 
unlikely  that  wonderful  results  will  be  accomplished  in  the  de- 
velopment of  his  brain,  and  especially  of  his  inhibitory  faculties, 
by  any  system  of  institutional  training,  although  efforts  in  that 
direction  should  be  made.  At  present  he  is  so  dangerous  to 
society  that  he  should  be  eliminated. 

A  study  of  this  case  shows  well-marked  features  of  degen- 
eracy. Facial  asymmetry  is  pronounced.  The  cranium  is  also 
asymmetric,  showing  a  distinct  lateral  twist,  the  left  half  of  the 
skull  being  much  the  smaller.  The  disparity  in  facial  develop- 
ment is  the  direct  opposite  of  that  of  the  cranial.  The  ears  are 
rather  small  and  asymmetric,  the  left  being  lower  and  much 
more  projecting  than  the  right.  The  jaw  shows  exaggerated 
prognathism  and  great  asymmetry  of  development.  Occipital 
development  is  very  defective,  the  superior  occipital  plane  being 
very  short  and  precipitous. 

The  eyes  are  peculiar.  Accommodation  is  impaired,  the 
pupillary  refiex  defective,  and  the  conjunctival  reflex  almost  nil, 
both  as  to  the  ocular  and  palpebral  portions.  The  aspect  of  the 
eyes  is  most  striking:  they  are  staring  and  fixed.  Attempts  to 
produce  winking  absolutely  failed. 

The  cranium  is  sub-microcephalic.  The  palate  is  high,  broad, 
and  well  developed,  though  asymmetric.  The  lower  dental  arch 
is  asymmetric,  and  contracted  upon  the  left  side. 

Among  the  most  interesting  criminals  that  have  fallen  under 
my  observation  were  the  Chicago  "  car-barn  murderers."  The 
desperate  character  of  these  men  is  familiar  to  every  one  who 
read  the  details  of  their  various  crimes.  I  have  at  hand  the 
portraits  of  two  of  the  three  notorious  characters.  Fig.  71  is 
the  portrait  of  H.  V.,  in  my  opinion  the  most  forceful  character 
of  the  trio.    The  history  of  this  subject  is  very  interesting  and 


Fig.   71. 
A  n 


Fig.    72. 


TYPES   OF   CRIMINALS  543 

suggestive.  The  details  herewith  presented  were  given  me  by 
his  mother,  and  are  in  the  main  confirmed  by  my  personal 
knowledge  of  the  family.  The  subject  was  twenty-two  years 
of  age  at  the  time  of  his  execution.  The  mother  is  a  woman 
of  excellent  character  and  altogether  worthy  of  respect.  The 
father,  so  the  mother  states,  was  arrested  and  placed  under 
bonds,  which  he  forfeited.  He  did  not  return  to  his  family,  and 
when  last  heard  from  was  in  Mexico. 

On  the  father's  side  H.  V.  has  a  neuropathic  heredity,  tra- 
ditionally for  many  generations.  The  paternal  grandfather  died 
of  tuberculosis.  The  paternal  grandmother  died  insane.  One 
paternal  uncle  was  violently  insane  and  died  in  an  asylum  fire. 
Two  of  H.  V.'s  cousins  have  each  two  epileptic  and  feeble- 
minded children.  One  paternal  aunt  is  in  an  asylum  for  the 
feeble-minded.  A  young  brother  of  H.  V.  had  tuberculosis  of 
the  hip  and  is  crippled. 

H.  V.  "  favored"  the  father's  side  of  the  house.  He  was 
always  possessed  of  a  violent  temper  and  given  to  furious 
assaults  upon  those  who  displeased  him.  From  early  childhood 
until  the  age  of  fourteen  years  the  boy  had  frequent  attacks  of 
what  was  pronounced  epilepsy  by  a  competent  physician. 

Fig.  72  is  the  portrait  of  N.,  who  was  supposed  by  the  police 
and  press  to  be  the  most  desperate  and  courageous  of  the  bandit 
trio.  Personally,  I  believe  his  bluster  and  brag  to  have  been 
mere  pretense.  He  tried  desperately  to  make  himself  believe 
that  he  was  a  hero.  He  attempted  suicide,  but  was  saved  for  the 
gallows.  He  died  like  an  arrant  coward,  as  might  have  been 
expected  of  a  man  of  his  physiognomy. 

From  a  careful  study  of  the  crania  of  these  men  after  their 
execution  I  concluded  that  they  were  pronounced  degenerates. 
I  will  present  only  a  few  salient  points.  In  all  three,  the  occiput 
was  badly  developed.  The  difference  between  their  skulls  was 
one  of  degree  only.  The  flattening  of  the  occiput  was  most 
marked  in  the  subject  shown  in  Fig.  ^2,  whose  abundant  hair 
conceals  this  particular  defect.  Frontal  development  was  de- 
fective in  all,  and  especially  in  the  last-named  sul)jcct.  Tn  tlic 
case  of  H.  V.  the  appearance  of  excellent  frontal  development 


544  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

is  due  to  sparsity  of  hair.  The  subject  was  quite  bald  about  the 
temples.  A  disproportionate  bitemporal  diameter  enhances  the 
deceptive  frontal  appearance. 

M.,  the  remaining  member  of  the  notorious  trio,  showed  some 
special  features  of  degeneracy.  The  jaw  was  pronouncedly 
asymmetric,  and  the  palatal  arch  somewhat  contracted  and  sad- 
dle-shaped. Frontal  and  occipital  development  was  very  in- 
ferior, although  not  so  marked  as  in  the  case  of  N.  (Fig.  ']2.^ 
M.'s  father  died  in  prison  under  sentence  for  rape.  There  were 
several  cases  of  insanity  in  the  family. 

The  primary  degeneracy  of  the  youthful  car-barn  bandits  was 
not  altogether  responsible  for  their  downfall.  Bad  company  had 
much  to  do  with  developing  these  cheap  imitations  of  the  fron- 
tier desperado. 

The  relation  of  suggestion  to  crime  bears  with  especial  force 
upon  the  frequency  with  which  crimes  similar  to  the  car-barn  rob- 
bery and  murder  have  occurred  since  the  execution  of  the  bandits. 
Youthful  imitators  of  their  exploits  have  been  numerous  in  Chi- 
cago. The  prospect  of  capture  and  the  gallows  has  been  in  no- 
wise deterrent  of  the  class  of  crimes  of  which  the  car-barn  trag- 
edy is  a  type.  The  burden  of  responsibility  lies  largely  with  the 
free  publication  of  the  details  of  the  crime  and  of  the  execution. 

Fig.  73  is  a  portrait  of  a  woman  who  has  been  not  inappro- 
priately styled  a  "  modern  Borgia."  She  is  an  American  by  birth, 
of  foreign  parentage.  She  confessed  to  the  murder  of  her  brother 
and  his  wife  and  baby,  by  the  administration  of  strychnine.  She 
is  suspected  also  of  having  murdered  a  number  of  other  persons, 
among  whom  were  two  of  her  former  husbands.  The  crime  for 
which  she  was  arrested  was  detected  through  the  filing  of  a  mort- 
gage, the  figures  of  which  she  had  raised.  She  claimed  that  this 
instrument  had  been  given  her  by  the  brother  whom  she  after- 
wards murdered. 

The  distinctly  masculine  type  of  this  subject  is  plain  even  on 
casual  inspection.  The  large  nose  and  ears,  heavy  masculine 
jaw,  and  general  coarseness  of  features  are  quite  characteristic 
of  a  certain  class  of  female  degenerates,  and  especially  of  those 
guilty  of  murder,  assault,  and  infanticide. 


TYPES   OF   CRIMINALS  545 

Figs.  74  and  75  are  portraits  of  M.,  one  of  the  most  notorious 
female  criminals  that  Chicago  has  ever  produced.  She  has  given 
the  police  more  trouble  than  almost  any  man  who  could  be  men- 
tioned among  the  criminal  class,  to  say  nothing  of  the  women. 
She  has  assumed  the  names  of  the  various  husbands  or  consorts 
she  has  had  from  time  to  time  during  her  interesting  career, 
hence  her  aliases  are  numerous.  She  is  now  in  prison  accused 
of  a  cold-blooded  murder  by  shooting.  One  of  the  exploits  that 
showed  the  desperate  character  of  the  woman  was  a  pistol  battle 
in  which  she  engaged  in  defence  of  her  then  consort,  who  was 
wanted  for  murder.  This  man  was  one  of  the  most  dangerous 
criminals  that  the  toughest  portion  of  Chicago  ever  produced. 
Being  closely  pressed  by  the  police,  he  and  the  woman  took 
refuge  in  a  shed,  whence  they  defended  themselves  most  des- 
perately. The  woman  occupied  herself  in  loading  her  companion's 
pistols  as  fast  as  he  emptied  them  at  the  police.  Their  castle  was 
finally  stormed  by  Inspector  Shea,  who  put  a  mattress  up  in 
front  of  him  as  a  shield,  and  thereby  succeeded  in  safely  breaking 
into  the  desperado's  stronghold.  M.'s  numerous  consorts  have 
all  been  thieves  and  desperadoes  of  the  first  rank.  None  of  them 
are  at  present  living.  Her  last  consort  was  a  man  many  years 
her  junior.  One  of  her  "  men,"  K.,  committed  suicide.  All  of 
her  "  husbands"  had  done  time  on  numerous  occasions,  and  one 
of  them  was  shot  to  death  while  resisting  an  officer. 

The  portraits  of  M.  herewith  shown  were  taken  many  years 
after  her  criminal  career  began.  They  show  her  to  be  an  appar- 
ently intelligent  and  rather  handsome  woman.  There  is  nothing 
in  her  appearance  to  suggest  her  desperate  character.  If  ignorant 
of  this  woman's  history,  one  would  not  be  likely  to  suspect  her  of 
having  served  several  terms  in  the  penitentiary,  or  of  having 
been  practically  the  queen  of  a  criminal  gang. 

M.'s  ancestry  is  not  available,  but  from  her  portraits  one 
would  be  led  to  believe  that  under  other  circumstances  she  would 
not  have  entered  on  a  criminal  career.  Such  an  inference  is 
safer  in  the  case  of  female  criminals  than  in  the  male,  for  where 
a  woman  becomes  a  confirmed  criminal,  environment  and  asso- 
ciation are  most  often  responsible.     In  a  diff'ercnt  environinent, 

35 


546  THE  DISEASES  OF  SOCIETY 

one  in  which  she  was  not  exposed  to  criminal  tutelage,  a  woman 
of  the  attractions  possessed  by  M.  would  be  likely  to  choose  a 
career  that  would  be  more  natural,  even  if  not  more  honorable. 

It  is  my  privilege  to  present  herewith  a  series  of  criminal 
types  that  are  exceptional  of  their  kind.  I  will  state  that  the 
various  subjects  were  selected  according  to  their  crimes,  and  not 
because  of  their  peculiarities  of  physique.  With  scientific  fair- 
ness in  view,  I  have  selected  merely  a  certain  number  of  each  of 
various  classes,  without  individual  selection.  Although  few  if 
any  of  them  correspond  to  the  horrible  freaks  and  extraordinary 
specimens  of  criminals  that  appear  in  the  works  of  various  Euro- 
pean writers  upon  criminology,  they  are  sufficiently  striking  to 
impress  even  the  casual  observer. 

It  will  be  noted  that  the  most  repulsive  and  most  markedly 
degenerate  of  the  various  groups  of  criminals  herein  presented  is 
the  series  of  rapists.  Figs.  76  and  yy,  78  and  79,  and  82  and  83 
are  especially  noteworthy,  from  the  stand-point  of  degeneracy. 
Even  the  best  looking  individual  of  the  lot,  Figs.  82  and  83, 
shows  marked  stigmata  of  degeneracy,  with  special  reference  to 
defective  frontal  development,  aural  deformity,  and  an  undevel- 
oped lower  jaw.  Figs.  78  and  79  give  perhaps  the  closest  ap- 
proximation to  the  Lombrosan  type  of  criminal  of  any  of  the 
series.  I  would  call  especial  attention  to  the  undeveloped  jaw 
in  Figs.  76,  78,  82,  86,  and  88,  and  to  the  massive  jaw  in  Figs. 
80  and  81. 

The  negro  in  Figs.  84  and  85  is  one  of  the  most  repulsive 
individuals  that  it  has  ever  been  my  privilege  to  study.  The 
asymmetry  of  facial  development  and  the  dome-shaped  cranium 
are  especially  noticeable.  There  is  an  obvious  tendency  towards 
oxycephaly.  The  inequality  in  the  size  and  placement  of  the 
eyes  is  very  noticeable.  The  features  are  suggestive  of  a  mod- 
erate degree  of  facial  paralysis. 

Taken  all  in  all,  the  series  of  sexual  criminals  under  con- 
sideration is  worthy  of  much  more  extended  study  and  analysis 
than  space  permits. 

The  group  of  murderers  herein  shown  are  by  far  the  best 
looking  and  least  degenerate  of  all.    This  is  in  accord  with  the 


6 


9 


TYPES   OF   CRIMINALS  547 

usual  experience  in  the  study  of  criminal  types.  This  should 
be  expected,  from  the  fact  that  from  a  scientific  stand-point  the 
murderer  is  more  exceptionally  a  true  criminal  than  almost  any 
other  class  of  individuals  who  perpetrate  major  crimes.  The 
true  criminal  murderer  is  the  individual  who,  in  the  pursuit  of 
the  profession  of  crime,  commits  murder — either  as  a  matter  of 
personal  defence,  because  of  resistance  to  his  plans,  or  in  resist- 
ing arrest — and  the  assassin  who  deliberately  plans  to  destroy  a 
life.  As  illustrations,  the  footpad  who  murders  his  victim  be- 
fore he  attempts  to  rob  him,  or  when  the  latter  resists ;  the 
burglar  who  is  detected,  and  who  kills  to  avoid  apprehension ; 
the  criminal  who  kills  the  policeman  who  undertakes  to  arrest 
him ;  and  the  poisoner,  are  only  too  familiar.  Murder,  under 
other  circumstances,  excluding  of  course  the  commission  of  the 
crime  by  the  insane,  may  be  committed  under  stress  of  emo- 
tional excitement  from  one  cause  or  another,  by  subjects  who  are 
at  other  times  mentally  and  morally  normal.  Such  individuals 
comprise  by  far  the  larger  proportion  of  those  who  annually 
commit  the  crime  of  murder. 

The  most  repulsive  individual  of  the  group  of  murderers. 
Figs.  io6  and  107,  owes  many  of  his  features  of  repulsiveness 
to  advanced  age  and  the  ravages  of  syphilis.  The  evidently 
recent  impact  of  a  policeman's  club  has  not  improved  his  appear- 
ance materially.  In  regard  to  the  probability  of  syphilis,  the 
saddle-shaped  nose  speaks  for  itself.  More  than  any  other  of  the 
group  of  murderers  this  man  resembles  the  characteristic 
criminal  type. 

Figs.  100  and  120  show  an  undeveloped  superior  maxilla. 
The  individual  shown  in  Figs.  102  and  103  has  a  somewhat 
sinister  physiognomy,  for  which  a  large  scar  upon  his  right 
temple  is  responsible.  Fig.  104  might  pass  for  the  portrait  of  a 
college  student.  Several  of  the  group  have  physiognomies  rather 
above  the  average  of  intelligence  and  comeliness. 

The  thieves,  burglars,  and  holdup  men  in  the  group  presented 
herewith  may  be  said  to  occupy  an  intermediate  position,  as 
regards  degeneracy,  between  the  murderers  and  the  rapists. 
Like  the  rapists,  the  murderers   and  burglars — and  especially 


548  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

the  latter — are  worthy  of  a  more  extended  study  and  descrip- 
tion than  it  is  practicable  to  give  them  here. 

Among  the  group  of  thieves  and  "  strong-arm"  men  here- 
with presented  are  some  very  interesting  types.  The  negro 
shown  in  Figs.  146  and  147  presents  an  asymmetry  of  face, 
inequality  of  eyes,  and  distortion  of  the  cranium  that  are  ex- 
ceptional.    The  jaw  is  undeveloped. 

The  individual  shown  in  Figs.  124  and  125  is  one  of  the 
most  typic  degenerates  of  all  the  subjects  shown  in  the  various 
groups.  The  inferior  frontal  development,  enormous  ears,  and 
undeveloped  jaws  would  impress  the  most  casual  observer. 

Figs.  126  and  127  show  the  typic  young  hoodlum  of  the 
slums,  an  individual  born  under  circumstances  the  most  un- 
favorable possible  for  moral  and  intellectual  development.  He 
belongs  to  a  class,  however,  a  large  proportion  of  which  is  sus- 
ceptible of  reformation  along  lines  which  shall  take  into  con- 
sideration the  necessity  for  physical  and  mental  development  as  a 
basis  for  moral  instruction. 

It  requires  no  criminologic  expertness  to  recognize  the 
viciousness  of  the  physiognomies  of  the  subjects  shown  in 
Figs.   128  and  129,   130  and   131,   132  and   133,  and   134  and 

135- 

Figs.  136  and  137  show  the  characteristics  of  the  typic  tough 
who  makes  an  affectation  of  gentility.  He  is  a  type  that  can  be 
found  both  in  and  out  of  the  slums.  The  conformation  of  his 
frontal  region  suggests  that  while  proper  early  training  might 
perhaps  have  saved  him  from  a  career  of  criminality,  it  is  im- 
probable that  great  results  in  the  direction  of  intellectual  develop- 
ment would  have  been  obtained. 

Figs.  138  and  139  show  an  individual  in  whom  it  would  be 
difficult  to  detect  any  characteristics  significant  of  the  criminal. 
Were  his  picture  to  be  placed  in  a  collection  of  university 
students,  it  would  be  above  the  average,  so  far  as  good  looks  and 
intelligence  of  physiognomy  are  concerned.  There  is  a  slight 
defect  of  occipital  development,  but  not  sufficient  to  be  noticeable 
in  a  head  otherwise  so  well  balanced.  The  hard  expression  about 
the  mouth  is  the  chief  suggestive  feature. 


"^ 


-^ 


o 


fc 


^        i 


TYPES   OF   CRIMINALS  549 

The  defective  cranial  development  in  the  individual  shown 
in  Figs.  140  and  141  is  sufficiently  obvious. 

The  group  of  female  criminals  presents  some  interesting 
types.  The  degeneracy  of  Figs.  148  and  149,  150  and  151,  154 
and  155,  164  and  165,  and  170  and  171  is  not  difficult  of  recog- 
nition. Figs.  154  and  155,  156  and  157,  and  158  and  159  are 
above  the  average  of  attractiveness.  The  negress  shown  in  Figs. 
160  and  161  is  a  perfect  specimen  of  her  race,  and  a  study  worthy 
of  the  brush  of  an  artist.  The  mulatto  shown  in  Figs.  162  and  163 
is  comely  enough,  yet  any  one  familiar  with  the  characteristics 
of  the  tough  negress  would  not  be  apt  to  be  deceived  by  her 
appearance.  In  several  of  the  female  subjects  there  is  a  distinct 
masculinity  of  type. 

A  fair  and  unbiased  criticism  of  the  various  groups  will,  I 
think,  bear  out  the  foregoing  comparisons  and  analyses,  although 
they  have  necessarily  been  general  rather  than  exhaustive  and 
minutely  critical. 

Through  the  courtesy  of  my  friend,  Mr.  John  E.  Wilkie, 
Chief  of  the  United  States  Secret  Service,  I  am  enabled  to 
present  a  series  of  illustrations  of  types  of  individuals  found 
among  counterfeiters.  A  brief  sketch  of  each  subject  is 
appended  as  furnished  by  Mr.  Wilkie. 

Fig.  172  is  the  son  of  respectable,  middle-class,  English 
parents,  aged  twenty-nine.  This  subject  is  the  most  expert  en- 
graver of  counterfeit  notes  and  internal  revenue  stamps  known 
to  the  United  States  vSecret  Service.  He  is  self-educated  and 
has  resided  in  this  country  since  childhood.  He  is  an  expert  in 
the  chemistry  of  photography,  and  is  quite  a  student  and  ex- 
perimenter in  the  arts.  He  consorts  with  negroes  and  is  abso- 
lutely devoid  of  moral  sense.  The  sensuality  of  this  subject  is 
apparent,  but  like  many  other  moral  perverts  he  presents  little, 
if  any,  evidence  of  physical  degeneracy.  The  frontal  develop- 
ment is  excellent,  and  indicative  of  a  high  degree  of  intellect- 
uality, which  is  not  unusual  in  moral  degenerates. 

Fig.  173  is  a  brother  of  the  preceding,  aged  twenty-five,  who 
made  a  business  of  circulating  notes  engraved  by  him.  He  is  an 
excessive  smoker  of  cigarettes.    Has  been  a  professional  bicycle 


550  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

sprinter,  but  is  a  loafer  by  choice.  The  degeneracy  of  this  sub- 
ject is  patent,  even  to  the  superficial  observer.  The  enormous 
ears  and  imperfectly  developed  jaw  are  greatly  in  evidence.  As 
in  the  case  of  his  brother,  frontal  development  is  excellent. 
Parietal  development  is  also  pronounced.  The  disproportionate 
development  of  the  cranium  as  compared  with  the  face  is  very 
striking.     Facial  asymmetry  is  pronounced. 

Fig.  174  is  a  Sicilian  by  birth,  aged  thirty-nine,  of  European 
importation.  This  subject  was  originally  a  stone-mason  by 
trade.  He  has  been  a  coiner  for  over  twenty  years ;  is  artistic 
in  his  work,  extremely  cunning,  and  far  above  the  average  of 
intelligence.  The  photograph  does  not  show  any  stigmata  of 
physical  degeneracy,  and  bears  out  the  assertion  that  the  sub- 
ject is  very  intelligent.  His  physiognomy  is  suggestive  of  a 
neurotic  tendency,  but  this  may  have  resulted  from  the  vicissi- 
tudes of  his  criminal  profession. 

Fig.  175  is  a  German  by  birth,  aged  forty,  and  an  artist  by 
occupation.  He  has  both  manufactured  and  "  shoved"  counter- 
feit money.  He  is  an  expert  lithographer  and  produces  very 
high  grade  lithographic  counterfeits.  He  is  very  crafty,  and 
shows  great  ingenuity  in  circulating  his  wares  and  avoiding 
detection  and  capture.  The  physiognomy  of  this  subject  shows 
exceptional  frontal  development  and  a  "  wide  awake"  quality  of 
intelligence.  The  only  marked  features  of  degeneracy  are  the 
unequal  placement  of  the  eyes  and  a  wild  expression  which  has 
many  counterparts  in  our  insane  asylums  and  prisons.  The  im- 
press of  the  neuropath  in  this  individual  is  sufficiently  plain. 

Fig.  176  is  an  American,  aged  thirty-two.  This  subject  is 
introduced  by  way  of  contrast  with  the  more  intelligent-looking 
counterfeiters.  He  is  serving  sentence  for  jury  bribing.  He  is 
of  a  type  that  can  be  found  in  any  gambling-house  or  sporting 
resort,  and  might  pass  for  the  average  confidence  man  or  "  tin- 
horn" gambler.  His  record  is  that  of  a  typic  tough,  ward 
heeler,  petty  swindler,  policy  writer,  and  "  speak-easy"  pro- 
prietor. He  is  accounted  by  thieves  and  toughs  as  very  "  wise." 
The  gross  sensuality,  absence  of  thought-lines,  and  love  of  ease 
depicted  in  this  subject  are  not  unusual.    He  is  a  good-natured, 


Fig.  172. 


Fu;.  173. 


Fig.  174. 


Fig.  175. 


Fig.  176. 


Fig.  177. 


TYPES   OF   CRIMINALS  551 

moral  pervert,  who  quite  likely  is  the  victim  of  his  environment. 
Such  individuals  under  favoring  conditions  may  make  reputable 
citizens,  but  have  little  resistance  to  moral  contagion  on  account 
of  imperfect  development  of  the  centres  of  intellectuality.  The 
disproportionate  smallness  of  his  forebrain  is  quite  apparent. 

Fig.  177  is  an  American,  aged  twenty-four.  This  subject, 
like  the  foregoing,  is  presented  for  purposes  of  comparison  with 
the  stronger  characters  of  the  counterfeiting  group.  He  is  the 
son  of  a  Baptist  clergyman,  a  graduate  of  a  college  of  pharmacy, 
and  by  occupation  a  medical  student.  He  is  intelligent,  well 
educated,  and  refined,  and  is  the  type  of  the  ordinary  well- 
brought-up,  morally  weak,  young  man,  whom  evil  association 
spoils.  He  is  intelligent,  rather  than  intellectual,  and  lacks  poise. 
His  frontal  development  is  defective,  as  is  also  his  power  of  con- 
centration. In  his  case  there  is  the  usual  story  of  bad  company, 
gambling,  wine,  and  women,  with  crime  as  a  means  to  the  end  of 
pleasure.  He  forged  paymasters'  checks  to  the  extent  of  eigh- 
teen thousand  dollars,  and  spent  it  all  on  races  and  women. 
Stigmata  of  degeneracy  are  not  observable  in  the  photograph. 
The  subject  is  merely  a  morally  weak  and  non-resistant  char- 
acter that  typifies  so  many  occasional  criminals. 

Fig.  178,  now  about  sixty  years  of  age,  is  an  American  by 
birth,  and  has  been  a  confirmed  counterfeiter  for  about  twenty 
years.  His  early  personal  history  is  not  available.  He  comes  of 
an  excellent  family,  without  criminal  record.  He  is  a  man  of 
some  artistic  taste  and  ability,  having  mastered  the  art  of  pho- 
tography and  followed  it  for  some  years.  Having  no  moral 
scruples  to  overcome,  counterfeiting  was  to  him  the  direction  of 
least  resistance,  and  an  occupation  for  which  his  early  training 
peculiarly  fitted  him.  His  case,  and  others  which  will  follow, 
are  illustrations  of  the  fascination  of  counterfeiting  for  criminals 
of  artistic  tendencies,  whose  lack  of  moral  balance  prevents  them 
from  seeing  anything  more  in  the  crime  of  counterfeiting  than 
the  practice  of  an  art  in  which  they  take  great  pride. 

This  particular  subject  took  especial  pride  in  teaching  the 
art  of  counterfeiting  to  others.  Scores  of  counterfeiters  have 
received  instruction  at  his  hands.    Many  of  them  have  attained 


552  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

considerable  distinction  in  the  art  of  counterfeiting.  The  sub- 
ject himself  is  now  serving  a  second  sentence  for  the  crime. 

On  casual  inspection,  this  subject  does  not  appear  to  differ 
very  markedly  from  many  non-criminals.  There  are,  however, 
some  stigmata  of  degeneracy,  the  presence  of  which  in  this  par- 
ticular subject  are  suggestive.  The  cranium  is  scaphocephalic, 
the  keel-shaped  crown  being  very  perceptible,  on  account  of 
baldness.  The  frontal  region  is  not  well  developed,  the  biparietal 
diameters  apparently  being  disproportionately  marked.  In  gen- 
eral, however,  the  cranium  is  relatively  small.  Bizygomatic 
diameter  is  greater  than  the  average.  The  eyes  are  asym- 
metrical, both  as  to  position  and  size.  The  left  eye  is  much 
higher  than  the  right,  and  has  a  contracted  appearance,  showing 
a  marked  corrugation  of  the  brow  near  the  glabella  which  does 
not  exist  upon  the  right  side.  The  ears  are  asymmetrically  set, 
stand  out  prominently  from  the  head,  and  are  exceptionally  large. 
Close  inspection  shows  the  lobe  of  the  ear  to  be  excessively 
developed,  and  Darwin's  tubercle  in  evidence,  but  not  especially 
prominent.  Prognathism  of  the  jaw  is  fairly  well  marked.  The 
extreme  mental  breadth  is  at  once  noticeable.  In  general,  the 
physiognomy  of  this  subject  suggests  craftiness,  determination, 
and  considerable  power  of  concentration. 

Fig.  179  is  a  Sicilian  by  birth,  aged  thirty-eight,  and  the 
reputed  head  of  the  Mafia  in  this  country.  He  has  been  a  coun- 
terfeiter for  many  years ;  is  a  blackmailer,  and  is  now  confined 
under  the  charge  of  murder.  He  comes  of  peasant  ancestry,  and 
had  a  criminal  history  in  his  own  country  before  coming  to  the 
United  States.  He  is  an  excellent  illustration  of  the  necessity 
for  safeguards  against  the  importation  of  European  criminal 
refuse.  The  family  history  as  regards  criminality  and  neurop- 
athy is  not  available.  As  is  true  of  the  Latins  in  general,  the 
element  of  degeneracy  must  be  discounted  somewhat  in  con- 
sidering criminals  of  this  type.  Racial  characteristics,  espe- 
cially in  the  direction  of  crimes  of  impulse,  such  as  murder  and 
assault,  cannot  always  be  logically  attributable  to  degeneracy. 
I  am  inclined  to  attribute  such  types  of  criminality  to  a  lack  of 
evolutionary  development,  rather  than  to  retrogression. 


Fig.   178. 


Fig.   179. 


■m 


Fig.  180. 


Fig.   181. 


Fig.  182. 


Fig.  183. 


TYPES   OF   CRIMINALS  553 

Racial  type  considered,  stigmata  of  degeneracy  are  not 
numerous  in  this  subject.  Although  cranial  and  facial  asym- 
metry are  fairly  well  marked,  the  physiognomy  indicates  in  a 
general  way  craftiness  and  irascibility,  the  latter  being  the 
psychic  foundation  of  crimes  of  impulse,  such  as  murder.  The 
jaw  is  distinctly  degenerate  in  type,  asymmetry  being  well 
marked.  The  physiognomy  in  general  is  intelligent,  and  bears 
the  stamp  of  the  neuropath. 

Fig.  180,  an  American,  aged  forty-one,  is  the  son  of  a  banker. 
This  man  was  originally  a  cigar-maker.  He  is  a  Napoleon 
among  criminals.  He  is  very  resourceful  in  nefarious  schemes, 
and  promoted  the  greatest  counterfeiting  conspiracy  the  govern- 
ment has  ever  unearthed.  This  subject  is  phlegmatic  in  tempera- 
ment, but  a  very  strong  character,  as  his  physiognomy  shows. 
His  face  is  very  sensual,  and  shows  great  determination.  His 
power  of  concentration  is  marked.  The  face  presents  an  asym- 
metry rather  greater  than  the  average.  Frontal  development  is 
fair.  The  only  stigma  of  degeneracy  noticeable  is  the  ear,  which 
presents  the  Darwinian  tubercle  and  a  crumpled,  narrow,  de- 
formed conchal  border. 

Fig.  181  is  an  American,  aged  forty,  a  mineral  prospector  by 
occupation.  The  family  and  early  history  of  this  man  are  un- 
known. He  has  been  a  well-known  desperado  on  the  Pacific 
coast  for  some  years.  He  is  an  old-time  counterfeiter  and 
habitually  either  under  surveillance  or  in  custody.  He  is  the 
closest  approximation  to  the  ordinary  type  of  criminal  in  this 
series  of  subjects.  The  desperado  is  stamped  upon  his  physiog- 
nomy in  unmistakable  lines.  Craftiness  and  dogged  determina- 
tion are  his  dominant  characteristics.  He  has  not  the  intellect 
required  for  great  schemes  of  criminality ;  he  is  the  type  that 
facilely  passes  from  one  form  of  crime  to  another,  as  the 
exigencies  of  his  life  demand.  He  is  of  the  same  kidney  as  the 
footpad,  burglar,  or  train-robber.  He  is  apparently  a  typic  de- 
generate, and  if  his  history  could  be  learned,  he  would  probably 
be  found  to  belong  to  that  stable  factor  in  crime,  the  born  crim- 
inal type. 

Fig.  182  is  an  American,  aged  forty-five,  and  an  engraver  by 


554  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

profession.  A  typic  desperado  from  his  youth  up.  He  com- 
mitted a  murder  when  only  sixteen  years  of  age.  He  subse- 
quently displayed  great  versatility  in  crime,  and  indulged  at 
various  times  in  train-robbing  and  burglary.  He  finally  adopted 
the  profession  of  counterfeiter  and  gave  the  government  con- 
siderable trouble.  He  died  a  few  months  since  of  paralysis, 
shortly  after  his  discharge  from  prison.  No  family  history  is 
available,  save  the  fact  that  one  brother  was  also  a  counterfeiter. 
No  abnormality  is  observable  in  the  photograph,  unless  possibly 
there  is  a  slight  convergent  squint  of  the  right  eye.  That  he 
was  a  moral  degenerate  his  history  shows,  despite  the  absence  of 
noticeable  stigmata  of  physical  degeneracy.  He  was  a  robust, 
healthy-looking  subject  and,  save  for  the  keen,  penetrating 
eyes  and  an  expression  of  determination,  was  a  rather  com- 
mon type.  The  paralysis  that  caused  his  death  naturally  war- 
rants a  suspicion  of  coarse  brain  disease.  Syphilis,  however, 
would  be  a  rational  explanation  of  the  paralysis.  Whether 
brain  disease  existed  or  not,  it  was  probably  not  responsible  for 
his  criminality,  which  began  at  a  very  early  age.  Whether  he 
was  a  born  criminal  or  the  victim  of  environment  is  not  sus- 
ceptible of  proof,  although  the  fact  that  a  brother  was  also  a 
counterfeiter  is,  to  say  the  least,  suspicious.  His  physiognomy, 
in  a  general  way,  suggests  bull-dog  pugnacity  and  irascibility, 
which  in  combination  make  criminals  of  the  most  dangerous 
kind. 

Fig.  183  is  a  Swede  by  birth,  aged  thirty-five,  by  profession 
a  chemist.  He  was  a  criminal  from  boyhood,  and  had  been 
arrested  and  punished  in  Sweden  for  counterfeiting.  He  was 
an  inventor  of  processes  for  multi-colored  printing.  His  spe- 
cialty was  the  manufacture  of  foreign  counterfeit  securities. 
When  placed  under  arrest,  he  committed  suicide.  Family  his- 
tory not  known.  This  subject  also  is  a  type  familiar  to  asylum 
physicians.  His  physiognomy  is  distinctly  neuropathic,  even 
approximating  the  insane  type.  The  eyes  are  closely  and  deeply 
set,  this  being  a  striking  feature.  The  ears  approximate  the 
Satanic  type.  Facial  asymmetry  is  very  pronounced.  Both 
upper  and  lower  maxillae  are  badly  developed.    Frontal  develop- 


TYPES   OF   CRIMINALS.  555 

ment  is  deficient.  The  physiognomy,  as  a  whole,  is  suggestive 
of  a  lack  of  moral  balance  associated  with  a  high  degree  of 
intelligence  and  a  moderate  degree  of  intellectuality.  The  man- 
ner of  his  death  is  not  surprising.  Egotism  and  self-conscious- 
ness were  in  him  very  prominent,  and  these,  associated  with  a 
natural  refinement,  would  account  for  his  suicide  under  the  stress 
of  detection,  arrest,  and  consequent  fear  of  punishment. 

In  surveying  the  foregoing  group  of  counterfeiters,  it  will  be 
noted  that  their  average  of  intellectuality  is  far  above  that  of  the 
ordinary  criminal.  Their  features  suggest  a  certain  strength  of 
character  which  comports  with  the  industry  and  close  application 
inseparable  from  their  chosen  criminal  profession.  Successful 
counterfeiting  demands  more  than  the  ordinary  degree  of  intelli- 
gence, and  necessitates  for  high-class  work  exceptional  artistic 
ability.  The  contrast  between  subjects  176  and  177  and  the  rest 
of  the  group  is  very  striking,  yet  by  no  means  surprising  when 
the  attributes  necessary  to  the  profession  of  counterfeiting  are 
considered. 


CHAPTER    XIV 

THE  THERAPEUTICS  OF  SOCIAL  DISEASE  IN  GENERAL,   WITH    ESPE- 
CIAL   REFERENCE    TO    CRIME 

The  treatment  of  certain  forms  of  social  disease  has  already 
been  discussed  in  previous  chapters.  There  remains  for  con- 
sideration the  therapeutics  of  crime  in  general.  It  is  hardly 
necessary  to  state  that,  inasmuch  as  degeneracy  underlies  all 
social  disease,  what  will  be  herein  said  regarding  the  preventive 
remedies  for  crime  applies  with  equal  force  to  all  of  the  evils 
that  spring  from  degeneracy. 

remedies    FOR   the    PREVENTION    AND    CURE   OF   CRIME 

The  therapy  of  crime,  like  that  of  disease  of  the  individual 
body,  comprises  both  preventive  and  curative  measures.  Like 
remedies  for  infectious  diseases,  the  remedies  for  crime  in  most 
instances  act  as  both  preventive  and  curative  agents.  It  having 
been  shown  that  the  proportion  of  criminals  in  civilized  coun- 
tries is  on  the  increase,  and,  further,  that  punitive  methods  have 
been  mainly  relied  upon  for  the  correction  of  crime,  it  follows 
logically  that  our  methods  have  been  faulty.  To  the  scientific 
student  of  criminology  the  reason  should  be  obvious.  The 
criminal  himself,  and  the  crimes  that  he  commits,  have  received 
the  attention  of  society,  but  the  causes  that  produce  the  criminal 
have  been  practically  ignored,  so  far,  at  least,  as  any  rational, 
definite  attempt  to  correct  them  is  concerned. 

The  science  of  medicine  has  of  recent  years  made  great 
strides  in  the  relief  and  cure  of  disease,  and  has  greatly  enhanced 
the  value  of  the  profession  to  society.  Improvement  in  treat- 
ment has  been  due,  not  to  the  discovery  of  panaceas,  but  to  a 
more  accurate  knowledge  of  the  causes  and  means  for  the  pre- 
vention of  disease.  Even  where  new  and  effective  remedies  have 
been  discovered,  we  are  chiefly  indebted  for  their  discovery  to 
556 


THERAPEUTICS    OF    SOCIAL    DISEASE        557 

the  betterment  of  our  knowledge  of  pathology  and  etiology. 
Recalling  the  parallelism  existing  between  individual  and  social 
disease,  it  is  obvious  that  improvement  in  the  management  of  the 
crime  problem  must  come  from  an  increase  in  our  knowledge  of 
the  causes  of  crime,  the  physical  study  of  the  criminal  himself, 
and  a  more  enthusiastic  attempt  to  prevent  crime  by  remetlies 
suggested  by  the  knowledge  of  its  causes.  The  moralist  and 
the  lawmaker  have  had  their  innings  and  have  failed,  on  the 
whole,  and  hope  for  the  future  would  seem  to  hinge  upon  the 
dominance  of  medical  science  in  criminology. 

Granting  that  degeneracy  underlies  all  social  disease,  and 
especially  crime,  it  follows  that  the  most  effective  means  of 
prophylaxis  are  those  which  further  the  prevention  of  degen- 
eracy. Inasmuch  as  the  conditions  underlying  degeneracy  are 
chiefly  hereditary,  it  is  obvious  that  attention  should  first  be  paid 
to  the  parentage  of  the  prospective  degenerate. 

It  has  been  truly  said  that  every  child  has  the  right  to  be 
well  born.  A  condition  of  society  in  which  this  should  be  guar- 
anteed to  every  child  would  indeed  be  Utopian.  While  not 
beyond  the  range  of  possibility,  it  is  certainly  not  within  the 
bounds  of  reasonable  probability  that  this  condition  of  affairs 
will  ever  prevail.  The  social  millennium  is  a  castle  of  dreams. 
That  great  betterment  of  conditions  is  practicable,  every  sociolo- 
gist is  well  aware ;  the  chief  obstacle  in  the  way  of  advancement 
being  the  unintelligent  and  illogical  sentimentality  and  pharisee- 
ism  of  the  general  public,  which  is  content  to  go  on  dealing  with 
effects  and  ignoring  causes,  and  well  satisfied  with  the  "  less  holy 
than  I"  explanation  of  crime. 

MARRIAGE   CONTROL 

Society  begins  its  self-contamination  at  the  marriage  license 
window.  Here  is  the  fountain-head  of  the  stream  of  degeneracy 
that  sweeps  through  all  social  systems.  The  foundation-stone 
of  society  is  the  matrimonial  relation.  Its  assumption  is  the 
most  important  step  that  a  human  being  can  possibly  take,  and 
upon  the  conditions  that  surround  it  depend  the  most  important 
interests  of  our  social  system.     Taking  this  into  consideration, 


558  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

and  laying  aside  the  selfish  apparent  interests  of  the  individual, 
it  is  astonishing  that  no  rational  effort  at  the  regulation,  control, 
or  supervision  of  the  marriage  relation  is  made  by  society.  The 
license  window  is  a  place  where  the  honest  citizen  and  the  crimi- 
nal, the  sane  and  the  insane,  the  diseased  and  the  healthy,  the 
pauper  and  the  millionaire,  the  learned  and  the  ignorant,  the 
intellectual  and  the  weak-minded,  may  meet  upon  common 
ground,  always  providing  the  important  consideration  of  the 
license  fee  is  forthcoming.  The  criminal,  the  insane,  the  epi- 
leptic, the  syphilitic,  and  the  drunkard  are  here  authorized  by  law 
to  begin  the  procreation  of  their  kind,  the  number  of  their 
progeny  being  limited  entirely  by  the  volition  and  physical 
capacity  of  the  individuals  immediately  concerned. 

The  marriage  license  is  the  agent  that  sets  the  individual  and 
social  machinery  for  the  manufacture  of  degenerates  in  opera- 
tion. That  these  degenerates  are  a  menace  and  an  expensive  bur- 
den to  society  is  everywhere  admitted.  Has  society  a  right  to 
protect  itself  against  its  own  vicious  oflF-scourings  ?  I  believe 
that  it  has.  There  will  be  no  eflfort  at  such  protection,  however, 
until  our  various  social  systems  have  become  sufficiently  en- 
lightened to  understand  that  the  prevention  of  degeneracy  is 
very  much  more  economic  than  the  cure  of  conditions  which 
arise  from  it.  The  public  conscience  is  close  to  the  public  pocket, 
and  the  public  is  not  likely  to  awaken  to  a  realization  of  its 
duties  until  its  instinct  of  commercial  self-defence  has  become 
thoroughly  aroused. 

The  sanitary  marriage  is  possibly  an  idealist's  dream,  and  it 
may  never  be  practicable  to  altogether  eliminate  from  society  the 
assumption  of  the  matrimonial  relation  by  individuals  to  whom 
it  should  be  by  no  means  permitted,  but  a  wise  control  and  regu- 
lation upon  rational  scientific  principles  is  certainly  practicable, 
and  likely  to  achieve  wonderful  results.  That  society  will  eventu- 
ally, for  its  own  protection,  adopt  some  method  of  regulation 
and  restriction  of  matrimony  I  believe  to  be  inevitable. 

Society  assumes  the  right  to  defend  itself  against  the  finished 
product  of  its  matrimonial  factory  of  degenerates,  and  there  is  no 
logical  reason  why  it  should  not  also  assume  the  right  to  protect 


THERAPEUTICS   OF   SOCIAL    DISEASE        559 

itself  from  the  conditions  which  set  the  machinery  of  evil  in 
operation,  I  firmly  believe  that  the  time  will  come  when  it  will 
be  no  longer  possible  for  our  army  of  recognizable  degenerates 
to  procure  licenses  to  marry.  I  believe  that  it  should  be,  and  one 
day  will  be,  a  statutory  crime  for  a  person  in  the  active  stages  of 
infective  disease  of  a  venereal  character  to  marry,  and  thus  risk 
the  almost  inevitable  infection  of  innocent  persons.  There  can 
be  no  greater  crime  against  an  individual  than  inoculation  with 
contagion,  the  eflfects  of  which  may  perhaps  outlast  several  gen- 
erations and  carry  affliction  to  unborn  innocence.  The  rights 
of  the  unborn  will  one  day  be  considered.  Until  they  are  so 
considered,  and  practical  eflforts  made  to  secure  them,  we  cannot 
hope  for  much  improvement  in  the  prevention  of  degeneracy. 

In  brief,  I  believe  that  man  will  one  day  devote  to  the  breed- 
ing of  human  beings  some  of  the  knowledge  he  has  acquired  in 
the  breeding  of  the  lower  animals.  Stirpiculture  will  be  the  sal- 
vation of  the  race,  and  is  the  rational  antidote  for  degeneracy 
and  its  train  of  evils — social  and  individual. 

I  am  well  aware  that  sentiment  is  strongly  against  the  regu- 
lation of  matrimony,  as  an  interference  with  individual  rights. 
This  sentiment,  however,  is  absurd,  in  view  of  the  legal  formali- 
ties with  which  it  is  even  now  hedged  about,  chiefly  for  the  pur- 
pose of  levying  tribute  upon  the  individual  for  the  benefit  of  the 
public  purse,  or  rather  for  the  purpose  of  increasing  political 
perquisites.  The  law  stipulates  as  to  the  age  of  candidates  for 
matrimony.  In  certain  States  consanguineous  marriages,  even 
to  the  fourth  degree  of  consanguinity,  are  forbidden ;  in  all 
States  consanguinity  up  to  the  third  degree  is  a  bar  to  matrimony. 
In  many  of  our  States,  both  Northern  and  Southern,  miscegena- 
tion is  prohibited.  It  will  be  seen,  therefore,  that  sentimental 
objections  to  the  regulation  of  matrimony  are  even  now  some- 
times honored  in  the  breach  rather  than  in  the  observance.  In- 
asmuch as  sentiment  has  hitherto  been  no  bar  to  the  demand 
for  a  license,  the  exaction  of  a  license  fee.  and  the  subsequent 
performance  of  the  marriage  ceremony  by  properly  qualified 
parties,  it  should  not  be  a  bar  to  the  demand  for  proper  quali- 
fications on  the  part  of  candidates  for  matrimony. 


56o  THE   DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

Reeve,  in  a  masterly  discussion  of  the  marriage  question  in  its 
relations  to  criminality,  says :  ^ 

"  If  the  vilest  mortal  that  lives  sees  proper  to  marry,  the  law  issues 
the  license  for  the  asking,  takes  the  fee,  makes  the  record,  and  leaves  the 
offspring  and  society  to  shift  for  themselves  the  best  they  can.  Even 
paupers,  while  in  the  poor-house,  and  criminals,  while  in  jail,  are  in  every 
way  encouraged  and  given  licenses  to  marry,  and  are  protected  by  the 
law.  No  thought  is  taken  for  the  unfortunate  offspring,  or  for  the  body 
politic  or  social,  and  the  irreparable  evils  that  must  fall  upon  all.  The 
church  adds  its  sanction,  and  its  ministers  aid  in  making  these  civil  con- 
tracts by  performing  a  ceremony  with  prayers  and  benedictions.  If  it  is 
wise  to  prohibit  polygamy,  marriage  between  relations,  and  between  per- 
sons whose  insanity  or  idiocy  is  self-evident,  it  is  equally  wise  to  prohibit 
it  in  all  cases  where  evil  may  follow.  If  the  law  has  the  power  to  prohibit 
and  punish  violation  in  the  one  case,  it  has  equal  right  in  all  others. 

"  There  is  an  endless  procession  of  children  from  all  these  sources 
coming  into  the  mass  of  population  to  live  lives  of  crime,  immorality, 
want,  suffering,  misfortune,  and  degeneracy,  transmitting  the  taint  in  con- 
stantly widening  streams,  generation  after  generation,  with  the  ultimate 
certainty  of  the  deterioration  of  the  race  and  final  irreparable  degeneracy." 

The  law  disregards  the  individual  rights  of  our  citizens  by 
demanding  examinations  and  licenses  for  pilots,  engineers,  phy- 
sicians, lawyers,  dentists,  pharmacists,  and  others,  and  imposes 
a  special  license  and  regulations  upon  various  occupations. 
Reeve  quite  logically  asks  the  question  why,  in  view  of  this 
attempt  to  protect  the  public  despite  individual  sentiment  and 
rights,  a  similar  protection  should  not  be  aflForded  to  society  by 
restriction  and  regulation  of  individual  rights  in  the  question  of 
matrimony. 

To  reduce  the  question  to  its  ultimate  by  material  and  sub- 
stantial argument,  I  will  advance  the  proposition  that  society 
should  govern  matrimony  upon  strictly  business  principles,  pat- 
terned after  those  of  life  insurance  companies,  in  the  management 
of  which  sentiment  is  an  unknown  quantity.  A  life  insurance 
company  which  should  be  governed  by  sentiment  would  not  be 
very  highly  regarded  from  a  business  stand-point,  nor  would  it 
be  likely  to  last  very  long.    Why  should  not  society  handle  the 


*  The  Prison  Question,  Hon.  C.  H.  Reeve. 


THERAPEUTICS   OF    SOCIAL    DISEASE        561 

matrimonial  relation  from  the  stand-point  of  a  huge  co-operative 
insurance  association,  and  dam  the  stream  of  expensive  degen- 
erates at  its  very  source? 

Previous  to  the  issuance  of  a  marriage  license,  statutory  law 
should  demand  that  both  the  persons  immediately  concerned 
obtain  a  certificate  as  to  their  physical  condition  from  a  non- 
political  and  therefore  non-partisan  board  of  medical  examiners, 
which  should  be  an  appendage  of  the  Health  Board  of  the  dis- 
trict in  which  the  application  for  a  license  is  made.  The  board 
or  council  of  medical  men  to  whom  the  application  for  a  health 
certificate  is  made  should  consist  of  not  less  than  three  members. 
The  examination  should  embrace  not  only  the  physical,  but,  to 
a  certain  degree,  also  the  moral  qualifications  of  candidates  for 
matrimony.  Persons  with  active  infectious  diseases  of  a  venereal 
nature  should  not  be  permitted  to  marry,  and  in  the  case  of 
syphilis,  the  history  of  the  case  should  be  taken  into  consideration 
and  a  license  refused,  even  though  the  disease  is  no  longer  active, 
if  the  constitution  of  the  individual  is  apparently  undermined  by 
it.  Marriage  without  a  satisfactory  medical  certificate  should 
be  subjected  to  a  penalty  which  would  be,  in  effect,  prohibitive. 
Severe  penalties  should  be  prescribed  for  infectors  of  the 
innocent. 

I  presume  that  discrimination  against  inebriates  would  be 
objected  to  upon  sentimental  grounds  more  strenuously  than 
other  features  of  matrimonial  regulation.  Inebriety,  however, 
is  the  most  important  of  all  causes  of  degeneracy,  and  the  ine- 
briate, above  all  other  individuals,  should  be  prohibited  from 
marriage.  The  individual  who  should  thus  escape  marriage  with 
an  alcoholic  or  narcotic  habitue  would  have  occasion  to  be  thank- 
ful ever  after. 

Sentimental  objections  to  the  regulation  and  restriction  of 
matrimony  are  especially  illogical  when  we  consider  that  the 
present  system  not  only  does  not  conserve  individual  rights,  but 
is  really  a  menace  to  them.  The  frequency  with  which  innocent 
women  are  infected  by  venereal  disease,  or  afflicted  with  life- 
long sorrow  through  having  married  mentally  unbalanced  or 
criminally  depraved  individuals  or  inebriates,  proves  this  point 

36 


562  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

conclusively.  The  protection  of  posterity  by  the  regulation  of 
matrimony  really  conserves,  therefore,  the  best  interests  of  the 
individuals  immediately  concerned. 

If  this  view  of  the  question  is  not  accepted,  as  it  is  not  likely 
to  be  by  individuals  who  can  see  a  rosy  ideal  in  an  incurable  or 
actively  infectious  gonorrheic  or  syphilitic,  a  drunkard,  or  an  epi- 
leptic, society  has  still  a  means  of  granting  such  fools  their  indi- 
vidual right  to  marry  any  degenerate  they  see  fit,  while  at  the 
same  time  protecting  itself  from  the  degenerate  progeny  of  such 
ill-assorted  marriages.  The  Court  of  Appeals  to  which  adverse 
certificates  of  matrimonial  qualifications  should  be  referred  is 
the  surgeon's  knife.  Individuals  who,  in  the  face  of  an  unfavor- 
able medical  opinion,  still  desire  to  marry,  should  be  given  the 
privilege  of  doing  so,  providing  they  submit  themselves  to 
sterilization  by  the  method  shortly  to  be  described. 

ASEXUALIZATION    AND   STERILIZATION 

The  special  application  of  asexualization  to  the  prevention 
and  correction  of  crimes  of  a  sexual  character  has  already  been 
expatiated  upon. 

Thirty  or  more  years  ago  Dr.  Gideon  Lincecum,  an  accom- 
plished physician  and  scientist,  appeared  before  the  State  Legis- 
lature of  Texas  and  ably  advocated  the  substitution  of  castra- 
tion of  criminals  for  capital  punishment.  He  was  set  down  as  a 
crank,  while  a  howl  of  derision  and  condemnation  arose  all  over 
the  land.  This  protest  was  generally  accepted  as  a  convincing 
argument  against  the  then  startling  suggestion  of  castration  as  a 
remedy  for  social  disease.  The  wave  of  disapprobation  that 
inundated  Dr.  Lincecum,  and  all  of  the  objections  which  have 
since  been  advanced  whenever  his  radical  treatment  of  crime 
has  been  alluded  to,  have  depended  entirely  upon  sentiment  for 
their  support.  Independently  of  the  question  of  the  wisdom  of 
castrating  habitual  criminals  and  rapists,  sentimental  objections 
to  the  substitution  of  the  method  for  capital  punishment  are 
highly  entertaining.  A  distinguished  legal  gentleman,  in  an 
eloquent  speech  before  the  Medico-Legal  Society  of  Chicago, 
vehemently  opposed  my  views  on  the  castration  of  criminals  on 


THERAPEUTICS   OF   SOCIAL    DISEASE        563 

purely  sentimental  grounds,  as  was  natural  on  the  part  of  one 
who  was  daily  using  sentiment  as  a  sledge  with  which  to  drive  an 
impression  of  the  justice  of  a  doubtful  cause  into  the  perplexed 
minds  of  a  dozen  of  those  people  known  to  the  criminal,  some- 
times not  ineptly,  as  his  peers.  He  opposed  the  method  chiefly 
because  of  its  alleged  barbarity.  From  the  humane  stand-point, 
however,  a  comparison  of  the  operation  of  castration  under  anes- 
thesia with  the  average  execution,  and  more  especially  with 
bungling  executions,  should  be  sufficient  to  convince  the  most 
sentimental  observer  of  the  fallacy  of  his  position. 

The  objection  has  been  urged  to  castration  that,  inasmuch 
as  the  eunuch  of  the  East  is  traditionally  vicious  and  savage, 
criminals  subjected  to  the  operation  would  acquire  similar  quali- 
ties, if  they  did  not  already  possess  them.  This  is  an  illogical 
assumption.  Before  making  any  deductions  from  the  character 
of  the  eunuch,  he  should  be  compared  with  the  race  from  which 
he  sprang.  The  Oriental  eunuch  comes  from  a  race  of  African 
savages.  The  Amazons  of  Dahomey,  who  are  submitted  to 
oophorectomy,  are  not  only  savages,  but  after  having  been  made 
practically  neuter  are  trained  by  savages  to  barbarous  deeds. 
Further,  they  are  spayed  young,  before  sex  influence  has  ever 
dominated  their  physiology,  and  trained  in  the  gentle  art  of  cut- 
ting throats  afterwards. 

The  castration  of  the  adult  criminal  would  not  result  in  the 
development  of  savage  instincts,  but  if  the  experience  of  the  ages 
counts  for  anything,  the  operation  would  be  likely  to  tone  down 
to  a  marked  degree  such  savagery  as  atavism  had  developed  in 
him.  That  the  foregoing  is  correct  is  shown  by  observations 
on  animals,  and  by  thousands  of  cases  of  emasculation  of  human 
subjects.  The  emasculated  choir-boys  of  Rome  did  not  develop 
bloodthirsty  instincts.  There  is  not  a  practising  physician  who 
does  not  know  a  large  number  of  women  who  have  been  spayed, 
wisely  or  unwisely,  for  the  relief  of  ovarian  and  other  diseases. 
yet  it  would  be  somewhat  difficult  to  mobilize  an  army  of  Ama- 
zons in  this  country. 

Absurd  sentimental  objections  and  the  fallacious  idea  of  pun- 
ishment by  castration  aside,  the  same  results  in  the  prevention 


564  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

of  degeneracy  can  be  obtained  by  a  method  of  treatment  less 
objectionable  and  less  severe  than  castration,  in  all  forms  of 
crime  save  rape.  Sterilization  accomplishes  precisely  the  same 
results,  is  practically  safe  under  modern  methods,  is  not  muti- 
lating, and  interferes  in  no  way  with  sexual  physiology,  save  in 
so  far  as  the  procreative  capacity  is  concerned.  In  the  male, 
resection  of  the  vasa  deferentia  is  an  operation  to  which  no 
objections  can  possibly  be  urged  on  the  ground  of  danger,  dis- 
figurement, or  complexity  of  technique.  In  the  female,  resec- 
tion of  the  Fallopian  tubes,  while  more  dangerous  than  the 
operation  of  vasectomy,  is  practically  safe  in  competent  hands, 
and  under  modern  precautions.  The  operation  of  vasectomy 
may  be  performed  through  a  scrotal  incision  one-fourth  of  an 
inch  in  length.  It  can  be  very  quickly  performed  under  local 
anesthesia;  its  danger  is  practically  nil,  and  there  is  absolutely 
no  disfigurement. 

Sterilization,  in  both  the  male  and  female,  has  a  wide  range 
of  application  in  the  prevention  of  social  disease.  As  already 
indicated,  individuals  whose  physical  or  moral  status  is  such  as 
to  insure  the  unfitness  of  their  prospective  progeny  should  be 
given  the  alternative  of  submitting  to  sterilization  as  the  only 
condition  upon  which  matrimony  is  legally  permissible.  Per- 
sons with  a  history  of  insanity,  epileptics,  dipsomaniacs,  incur- 
able syphilitics,  certain  persons  who  suflFer  from  deformity  or 
chronic  disease,  criminals,  and  persons  with  criminal  records 
should  not  be  permitted  to  marry  upon  any  other  conditions.  In- 
curable criminals,  epileptics,  and  the  insane  should  invariably  be 
submitted  to  the  operation,  irrespective  of  matrimony.  Even  the 
rare  cases  of  reformed  habitual  criminals  should  be  subjected  to 
the  operation,  for  the  cure  of  their  own  criminal  tendencies  will 
not  interfere  with  the  transmission  of  those  tendencies  to  their 
progeny. 

F.  H.  Wines,^  one  of  our  ablest  writers  upon  the  crime 
question,  takes  a  highly  pessimistic  view  of  our  ability  to  control 
criminal  heredity.    He  says : 

*  Punishment  and  Reformation. 


THERAPEUTICS   OF   SOCIAL    DISEASE        565 

"  Hereditary  causes  of  crime  are  as  completely  beyond  our  control 
as  the  cosmical,  but  heredity  is  a  continuing  influence,  with  an  outlook 
in  the  direction  of  the  future  as  well  as  that  of  the  past.  It  has  there- 
fore been  supposed  by  some  earnest  and  well-meaning  people  that  crime 
could  be  sensibly  diminished  by  the  perpetual  isolation  of  habitual  har- 
dened offenders,  or  even  by  resort  to  an  obvious  surgical  operation. 

"  This  notion  is  founded  upon  the  belief  in  a  criminal  anthropo- 
logic type,  which  is  not  proved.  If  such  a  type,  in  fact,  exists,  the  diffi- 
culties in  the  way  of  a  judicious  determination  of  the  question  whether 
any  convict  who  may  be  named  does  or  does  not  constitute  a  member  of 
an  hereditary  criminal  group  would  be  almost,  if  not  quite,  insuper- 
able." 

Dr.  Wines's  position  is  hardly  logical.  He  admits  heredity 
as  a  cause  of  crime,  and  immediately  denies  that  heredity  can  be 
controlled  by  putting  habitual  criminals  beyond  the  possibility  of 
procreation.  It  is  obvious  that,  in  so  far  as  such  criminals  are  a 
factor  in  transmitted  criminality,  heredity  would  be  controlled 
by  their  permanent  isolation  or  asexualization.  It  is  not  neces- 
sary, however,  to  demonstrate  a  criminal  anthropologic  type  in 
order  to  prove  the  value  of  measures  tending  to  prevent  the 
procreation  of  children  by  criminals.  Whether  there  is  a  definite 
anthropologic  type  or  not,  the  fact  remains  that  a  certain  more 
or  less  definite  proportion  of  our  population  is  composed  of 
criminals  by  instinct  and  by  profession.  These  individuals  are 
degenerates,  and  the  degeneracy  that  is  responsible  for  their  own 
criminality  may  indubitably  be  transmitted  to  their  descendants. 
Any  measure  that  prevents  this  class  of  individuals  from  having 
descendants  is  necessarily  preventive  of  crime.  To  demand  that 
all  criminals  should  be  cast  in  a  definite  mould,  the  finished  pro- 
duct of  which  he  who  runs  may  read,  is  begging  the  question. 
It  is  not  necessary  to  determine  whether  "  any  given  convict  is 
a  member  of  an  hereditarily  criminal  group,"  in  order  to  show 
that  the  prevention  of  his  procreating  will  be  preventive  of  crime. 
Whether  the  criminal  himself  is  directly  descended  from  criminal 
parentage  or  not,  he  is  a  degenerate  who  may  transmit  his  de- 
generacy to  his  descendants.  Had  he  himself  never  been  born 
he  would  scarcely  be  a  matter  for  discussion. 

Dr.  Wines  is  apparently  jealous  of  the  individual  rights  of 


566  THE    DISEASES   OF   SOCIETY 

the  criminal.  Criminality,  however,  will  never  be  sensibly 
diminished  until  the  incurable  criminal  is  regarded  as  an  indi- 
vidual who  is  absolutely  forbidden  all  rights, — save  the  right  to 
treatment  as  humane  as  consistent  with  perpetual  isolation, — 
and  every  criminal  is  denied  the  right  to  procreate,  within  the 
discretion  of  a  properly  constituted  medical  board.  Any  con- 
sideration that  may  be  shown  the  confirmed  criminal  by  society 
should  be  regarded  as  entirely  gratuitous,  and  founded  purely 
upon  humane  impulses  which  forbid  unnecessary  cruelty.  So  far 
as  his  social  status  is  concerned,  he  is  simply  excrementitious 
matter  that  should  not  only  be  eliminated,  but  placed  beyond 
the  possibility  of  its  contaminating  the  body  social.  Dr.  Wines 
himself  says,  "  A  healthy  society,  like  a  healthy  body,  eliminates 
from  itself  the  morbid  and  morbific  dejecta,  whose  retention 
would  imperil  vitality."  Considering  this  premise,  how  can  he 
concede  individual  rights  to  the  incurable  criminal  who,  in  strict 
justice,  has  not  even  the  right  to  live? 

The  rights  of  the  posterity  of  the  convict  are  best  conserved 
by  preventing  his  having  posterity.  Permitting  a  criminal  to 
breed  because  of  a  tender  consideration  for  his  posterity  is 
absurd,  as  a  general  proposition.  That  exceptions  should  be 
made  in  the  case  of  the  occasional  criminal  I  will  admit,  but  even 
here  the  probability  of  a  degenerate  posterity  should  be  taken 
into  serious  consideration,  and  careful  discrimination  made. 
Certain  occasional  criminals  should  be  placed  in  the  same  cate- 
gory with  habitual  or  typic  criminals,  so  far  as  the  prevention  of 
procreation  is  concerned.  Maudlin  sentimentality  in  behalf  of 
a  degenerate  posterity,  which  would  probably  rule  against  its 
own  birth,  had  it  any  choice  in  the  matter,  should  weigh  but 
little  in  the  balance  of  social  welfare.  This  is  even  more  perti- 
nent as  applied  to  mental  incompetents  and  sufferers  from 
nervous  diseases  and  deformities  of  an  hereditary  character. 

A  tender  consideration  of  the  criminal's  right  to  procreate  is 
decidedly  illogical,  in  the  face  of  the  fact  that  the  more  radical 
measures  for  the  suppression  of  crime  now  in  vogue  do  not  show 
any  particular  sensitiveness  on  the  part  of  society  as  to  the 
criminal's  rights.     The  primordial  right  of  man  is  the  right  to 


THERAPEUTICS   OF   SOCIAL   DISEASE        567 

live.  The  law  does  not  hesitate  to  hang  the  murderer,  despite 
the  fact  that,  upon  the  average,  the  murderer  is  of  all  criminals 
the  least  dangerous  to  society.  Liberty  is  a  right  of  man  which 
cannot  be  gainsaid,  yet  the  law  does  not  hesitate  to  imprison  for 
life,  on  occasion.  Life  imprisonment  not  only  takes  away  liberty, 
but  practically  infringes  upon  the  right  to  live,  for  without 
liberty  there  is  no  life  worthy  of  the  name.  In  imprisonment  for 
life  or  capital  punishment  it  would  be  somewhat  difficult  to  see 
any  conservation  of  the  rights  of  the  criminal's  posterity  from 
the  sentimentalist's  stand-point. 

Sterilization  of  criminals  for  the  protection  of  the  public 
against  a  degenerate  posterity  in  no  way  compares  in  severity 
with  capital  punishment  or  imprisonment  for  life,  remedies 
which  the  law  does  not  hesitate  to  impose  in  certain  cases,  for  it 
does  not  interfere  with  either  liberty  or  life.  The  right  to  pro- 
create should  not  exist  in  the  case  of  habitual  criminals,  nor  in 
a  large  proportion  of  occasional,  or,  indeed,  in  typic  degen- 
erates of  any  kind  whatsoever,  and  unless  perpetual  imprison- 
ment be  rigidly  enforced  against  them,  they  should  be  put 
beyond  all  possibility  of  procreation.  Under  present  conditions 
a  sentence  of  imprisonment  for  life  does  not  insure  the  protec- 
tion of  society  against  the  criminal  so  sentenced,  because  of  the 
danger  of  escape,  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  pardon,  on  the  other. 

It  is  obvious  that  the  application  of  sterilization  to  the  crime 
class  would  require  some  discrimination,  and  should  be  made 
under  strictly  scientific  supervision. 

So  far  as  the  typic  or  habitual  criminal  is  concerned,  the 
method  should  be  universally  applied.  In  other  cases,  careful 
study  and  selection  should  be  made,  society  in  all  cases  being 
given  the  benefit  of  any  doubt.  There  is  this  to  be  said  in  favor 
of  sterilization, — viz.,  if  performed  under  strict  scientific  super- 
vision, as  a  method  of  preventing  crime  only,  and  not  for  the 
purpose  of  punishment, — it  being  directed  against  the  criminal 
and  not  against  the  crime  that  he  has  committed, — comparatively 
few  mistakes  would  be  likely  to  be  made,  and  those  mistakes  by 
no  means  so  serious  in  result  as  many  that  are  made  by  courts  of 
law  in  the  conviction  and  punishment  of  the  innocent. 


568  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

In  many  instances  one  of  the  conditions  of  the  liberation  of  a 
physically  or  mentally  degenerate  criminal  who  is  supposed  to 
be  cured  of  criminality  should  be  sterilization.  Whether  cured 
or  not,  he  breeds  bad  progeny,  and,  once  he  is  in  the  hands  of 
the  law,  every  effort  should  be  made  not  only  to  cure  the 
individual  tendency,  but  to  prevent  the  procreation  of  other 
individuals  with  similar  tendencies. 

man's  inhumanity  to  man 
In  strict  justice  to  society,  upon  the  principle  of  social  self- 
defence,  and  in  many  instances  in  all  kindness  to  the  defective 
himself,  every  degenerate  who  is  useless  to  himself,  a  menace  to 
the  health  of  society,  and  is  shown  to  be  incurable,  should  be 
effectually  eliminated  by  destruction.  While  still  clinging  to 
capital  punishment,  public  sentiment  is,  and  probably  will  always 
be,  set  against  the  general  sacrifice  of  degenerates  for  the  wel- 
fare of  society.  The  same  social  system  that  supports  humane 
societies,  whose  duty  it  is  to  prevent  the  infliction  of  suffering 
upon  dumb  animals,  builds  institutions  for  the  purpose  of  per- 
petuating the  lives  of  incurable  sufferers  from  disease,  imbeciles, 
insane,  and  habitual  criminals,  who  would  better  be  dead,  from 
the  stand-point  of  both  individual  and  social  interests.  No 
thinking  man,  whatever  his  prejudices  may  be,  can  witness  the 
sights  that  may  be  seen  at  any  time  in  our  insane  asylums  with- 
out the  impression  that  a  large  proportion  of  their  inmates  are  of 
"  the  better  dead."  He  will  instinctively  feel  that  there  is  some- 
thing radically  wrong  in  the  system  which  permits  some  of  the 
"  wards  of  the  State"  to  live.  He  is  likely  to  be  dimly  conscious 
that  an  injustice  is  being  inflicted,  not  only  upon  society,  but 
upon  the  unfortunate  victim  of  disease  or  degeneracy  himself. 
He  may  perhaps  marvel  at  the  tender  solicitude  with  which  life 
is  kept  in  the  bodies  of  imbeciles  and  incurable  insane,  while 
young  children  are  being  allowed  to  run  the  streets  neglected, 
to  become  proficient  in  vice  and  crime,  and  furnish  recruits  for 
our  penal  institutions.  He  may  marvel  further  at  the  incon- 
sistency of  a  social  system  that  builds  jails  for  the  housing  of 
thieves,  and  infirmaries  for  the  tender  care  of  degenerates  who 


THERAPEUTICS   OF   SOCIAL   DISEASE        569 

are  burdens  to  themselves  and  the  community,  while  children 
of  tender  age  are  allowed  to  become  prematurely  aged  in  factory 
labor.  But  so  long  as  sentiment  is  allowed  to  enter  into  the 
management  of  human  affairs,  just  so  long  will  society  fail  to 
protect  itself  from  its  own  excreta  in  the  most  radical  and  effec- 
tive manner  possible,  and  just  so  long  should  it  approximate  the 
total  elimination  of  social  excreta  as  nearly  as  may  be,  by  the 
prevention  of  their  propagation,  on  the  one  hand,  and  by  their 
permanent  isolation,  on  the  other. 

IMPROVING   THE   CONDITIONS   OF   THE   POOR 

When  any  given  social  system  has  so  far  progressed  that 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  slums  within  its  environs,  it  will  have 
done  much  to  reduce  its  proportion  of  criminals.  That  our  city 
slums  breed  criminals  is  a  trite  observation.  Society  is  responsi- 
ble for  the  evil  environments  of  the  poor.  Every  moral  and 
physical  plague-spot  should  be  so  cleaned  and  beautified  that  it 
is  not  only  sanitary,  but  tends  to  stimulate  its  inhabitants  to 
higher  aspirations  and  cleaner  habits.  Morality  and  self-respect 
are  not  to  be  found  where  squalor,  dirt,  and  poverty  combine  to 
drag  human  nature  down  into  the  mud  and  slime  of  criminality 
and  prostitution.  Self-respecting  people  are  not  to  be  found  in 
the  reeking  slums  of  a  metropolis.  Let  our  great  philanthropists 
who  are  now  beating  drums  in  the  market-place,  to  call  attention 
to  the  goodness  and  liberality  displayed  in  the  endowment  of 
great  libraries  and  universities,  devote  some  of  their  money  and 
energy  to  improving  the  conditions  of  the  poor, — not  only  of  the 
Lord's  poor,  but  also  of  the  devil's  poor.  Model  tenements,  in 
which  the  bath  is  a  prominent  feature,  clubs  for  both  boys  and 
adults,  free  lectures,  concerts,  theatrical  and  educational  enter- 
tainments, and  clean  streets  and  alleys  would  do  much  to 
eliminate  the  slum  factor  in  the  etiology  of  social  disease.  Free 
baths  and  gymnasia  are  superior  to  missionaries  as  civilizers  of 
slums.  The  gospel  of  work,  health,  and  cleanliness  is  more 
potent  than  preaching.  These  things,  like  the  evergreen  hills, 
are  far  away,  but  when  our  wealthy  alleged  philanthropists  come 
to  sincerely  prefer  "  mansions  in  the  skies"  to  the  trumpet-blast 


570  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

of  public  praise  and  newspaper  exploitation  of  their  benevolence, 
they  may  be  brought  within  reach. 

Books  and  periodicals  given  outright  to  such  of  the  poor  of 
the  slums  as  can  read  will  do  more  for  them  than  free  libraries, 
to  which  their  access  is  more  theoretic  than  real.  The  person 
who  owns  a  good  book  cannot  fail  to  be  elevated  by  its  posses- 
sion. To  argue  that  some  persons  in  the  slums  cannot  read  is  to 
make  further  accusation  against  society. 

The  workingmen's  clubs  of  London  are  models  that  America 
might  do  well  to  imitate.^  They  embrace  everything  that  tends 
to  elevate  the  intellectual  status  of  their  members.  It  may  seem 
strange  to  some  who  do  not  understand  the  craving  of  human 
nature  for  the  things  which  are  denied  it,  but  these  clubs  have 
done  better  work  since  the  sale  of  light  wines  and  beer  has  been 
permitted  in  them.  The  workingman  resented  in  a  very  natural 
fashion  the  discrimination  against  him  and  in  favor  of  the  aris- 
tocratic club  man,  and  most  persistently  and  contumaciously 
sought  the  forbidden  fruit  and — got  drunk.  Since  he  has  been 
able  to  obtain  stimulants  at  his  club  he  has  rarely  abused  the 
privilege. 

Were  our  national,  State,  and  municipal  governments  alive 
to  their  sociologic  duties,  there  would  be  little  need  of  private 
philanthropy  in  improving  the  conditions  of  the  poor,  and  estab- 
lishing institutions  for  the  proper  care  of  delinquent  children, 
and  properly  conducted  schools  for  non-delinquents.  The  tax- 
payer is  yielding  revenue  enough,  if  honestly  used,  to  permit  of 
great  advancement  in  this  respect.  Even  if  the  present  rate  of 
taxation  were  really  inadequate  a  little  increase  would  not  be 
felt  and  would  be  sufficient.  Only  a  short  time  since,  the  national 
government  was  embarrassed  by  the  accumulation  of  a  greater 
surplus  than  permitted  by  law.  This  excess  amounted  to  many 
millions,  yet  it  was  derived  from  internal  revenue  taxation  alone. 
Not  many  months  ago  so  much  money  in  excess  of  the  needs  of 
our  government  was  gleaned  from  war  taxation  that  it  was 
necessary  to  reduce  the  tax  on  beer  to  prevent  an  embarrassment 


•  Vide  English  Social  Movements,  Robert  Archey  Woods. 


THERAPEUTICS   OF    SOCIAL   DISEASE        571 

of  riches  in  the  national  treasury — and,  incidentally,  to  conciliate 
the  beer  trust. 

A  larger  share  of  the  burdens  of  society  should  be  borne  by 
the  plutocracy.  There  should  be  more  legal  assessments  of  the 
multi-millionaires — compulsory  subscriptions,  as  it  were — for  the 
elevation  of  the  Under  World. 

In  passing,  I  wish  to  do  honor  to  one  American  of  wealth 
who  is  wisely  philanthropic.  Pawtucket,  Rhode  Island,  now  has 
a  building  given  over  entirely  to  "  boys'  clubs,"  the  gift  of 
Lyman  B.  Goff,  who  is  one  of  the  largest  textile  manufacturers 
in  the  United  States.  The  main  purpose  of  the  clubs  is  reason- 
able recreation.  There  is  a  gymnasium,  a  swimming-pool, 
shower-baths,  and  game-rooms.  Together  with  recreation,  how- 
ever, there  is  a  certain  amount  of  instruction.  The  instruments 
of  instruction  are  manual  training-rooms  and  a  library. 

A  few  other  somewhat  similar  institutions  are  to  be  found 
throughout  the  country. 

The  various  forms  of  governmental  paternalism  that  have 
been  suggested  would,  it  is  true,  have  their  defects.  A  large 
revenue  under  the  control  of  rotten  politics  would  impair  its  use- 
fulness, but,  in  the  long-run,  it  would  improve  even  our  politics. 
Our  office-holders  would  eventually  be  more  often  men,  rather 
than  politicians. 

It  is  obvious  that  every  measure  that  tends  to  improve  the 
conditions  of  the  homes  of  the  poor  is  prophylactic  of  crime  by 
refining  the  influences  to  which  children  are  subjected. 

It  is  not  only  the  poor,  who  can  not,  but  also  some  of  the 
well-to-do,  who  will  not,  rear  their  children  properly,  who  fur- 
nish recruits  for  the  crime  class.  The  poorest  of  homes  is  better 
usually  than  no  home  for  the  child,  still  it  must  be  admitted  that 
the  home  surroundings  are  often  such  as  directly  favor  the  evolu- 
tion of  criminal  tendencies  in  children.  A  lack  of  supervision 
of  their  intimacies  and  friendships  for  the  purpose  of  guarding 
against  evil  associations,  failure  to  keep  in  touch  with  their 
habits,  lack  of  discipline,  encouragement  of  extravagance,  and 
evil  example  under  the  parental  roof. — all  these  are  factors  in 
the  spoiling  of  juvenile  character.    Quarrels  between  the  parents, 


572  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

flagrant  breaches  of  propriety,  drunkenness,  dishonesty,  and 
conflicts  among  its  elders  are  not  calculated  to  make  a  child 
ethical.  Oftentimes  the  child  is  taught  to  lie  and  steal  by  direct 
example  at  home,  and  this  sort  of  teaching  is  by  no  means  con- 
fined to  the  lower  strata  of  society. 

It  is  evident  from  the  foregoing  that  a  wise  governmental 
paternalism  would  be  that  which  would  take  the  home  conditions 
of  children  under  its  supervision. 

The  turbulence  of  the  striker  is  not  without  effect  upon  his 
own  as  well  as  other  children.  A  suggestive  lesson  was  a  recent 
disorderly  strike  among  Chicago  school-children,  because  of  a 
grievance,  real  or  fancied.  It  needs  no  great  perspicacity  to  trace 
to  its  source  the  conduct  of  these  children.  A  lack  of  parental 
control,  and  adult  encouragement  and  example,  both  in  and  out 
of  the  home,  must  bear  the  responsibility.  The  strike  fever  and 
its  attendant  anarchy  are  now  an  integral  part  of  our  children's 
education  that  is  certain  to  bear  bitter  fruitage. 

One  of  the  fallacies  of  modern  thought  is  that  innocence  is 
necessarily  a  dangerous  attribute  of  humanity.  The  proposition 
that  "  Innocence  is  ignorance"  is  the  oriflatnnic  of  certain  social 
reformers.  Granting  the  truth  of  this  proposition  in  its  general 
application,  there  is  still  something  to  say  in  qualification.  If  in- 
nocence is  ignorance,  it  is  fair  to  assume  that  ignorance  is  some- 
times innocence,  and  while  ignorance  is  evil  and  the  parent  of  evil, 
a  little  of  the  sort  that  constitutes  innocence  will  not  harm.  It  is 
well  that  children  should  know  at  least  as  much  of  the  evil  things 
of  Hfe  as  their  safety  demands,  but  some  of  our  knowledge  is 
unnecessary  to  most  persons,  and  serves  only  to  make  life  less 
beautiful.  It  is  not  necessary  to  wallow  in  the  mud  in  order  to 
appreciate  the  lotus  blossom,  the  stalk  of  which  grows  deep 
down  in  the  slime.  It  is  enough  to  know  that  the  slime  is  there. 
It  is  not  necessary  that  children  should  become  intimately  ac- 
quainted with  evil  in  order  that  they  shall  become  wise.  Much 
of  the  knowledge  of  the  world  that  some  adults  possess  would 
better  have  been  unlearned. 

The  argument  is  often  advanced :  "  But  the  child  will  be 
exposed  to  these  things  sooner  or  later,  and  he  would  better 


THERAPEUTICS   OF    SOCIAL    DISEASE        573 

become  familiar  with  them  now."  I  place  this  argument  on  the 
same  plane  that  I  do  the  theory  of  the  old  women — with  and 
without  trousers — who  advocate  exposing  little  children  to  scarla- 
tina and  measles  because,  forsooth,  they  are  bound  to  contract 
these  diseases  sooner  or  later.  Common  sense  should  suggest 
that  the  child  be  preserved  from  exposure  to  contagion,  in  the 
knowledge  that  advancing  age  brings  relative  or  complete  im- 
munity, and  in  the  hope  that  exposure  to  infection  may  never 
occur.  In  the  same  way  children  should  be  protected  from  moral 
contagion  during  the  age  of  greatest  susceptibility.  Children 
should  be  taught  worldly  things  with  great  discretion  during  the 
period  of  psychic  plasticity.    Moral  scars  are  lasting  scars. 

One  of  the  most  crying  necessities  of  the  poor  is  opportunity 
for  communing  with  nature.  The  philanthropist  who  shall  pro- 
vide broad  acres  and  forests,  remote  from  the  city,  for  summer 
outings  for  the  children  of  the  poor,  will  do  a  great  work  for 
humanity.  Farms  for  the  employment  of  juveniles,  delinquent 
or  non-delinquent,  during  a  portion  of  the  year  would  accomplish 
much.  Even  the  children  of  the  well-to-do  in  cities  have  little 
opportunity  to  get  close  to  the  bosom  of  nature.  This  is  not  as 
it  should  be.  The  free  air  of  heaven,  sunshine,  trees,  birds, 
flowers,  and  running  brooks  are  worth  as  much  in  moral  as  in 
physical  development. 

JUVENILE    MANAGEMENT   AND   REFORM 

The  key-note  of  the  prevention  and  cure  of  crime  is  the 
proper  education  and  management  of  children  in  general,  and  of 
delinquent  children  in  particular.  There  is  no  question  but  that  it 
is  possible  to  prevent  the  majority  of  children  who  are  not  born 
imbeciles  from  becoming  delinquent.  Still  less  is  it  to  be  doubted 
that  by  far  the  larger  proportion  of  those  who  become  delinquent 
at  an  early  age  may  be  saved  by  proper  moral,  educational,  and 
physical  measures.  That  society  is  directly  responsible  for  its 
criminals  is  easily  proved  if  it  can  be  shown  ( i )  that  a  large  pro- 
portion of  criminals  begin  their  careers  at  a  tender  age,  and  (2) 
that  the  criminality  of  these  juveniles  is  the  result  of  neglect  on 
the  part  of  society,  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  the  parents,  upon  the 


574  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

other.  The  statistics  of  the  PoHce  Department  of  the  city  of 
Chicago  are  alone  sufficient  to  prove  the  importance  of  the  sub- 
ject under  consideration.  In  1900  the  total  number  of  arrests  of 
persons  under  sixteen  years  of  age  was  5460.  In  1901  there  were 
4478.  In  1902  there  were  3785  under  sixteen,  and  9305  between 
sixteen  and  twenty,  making  a  horrifying  total  of  13,090  under 
twenty  years  of  age.  The  total  number  of  children  who  com- 
mitted criminal  acts  must  have  been  several  times  the  number 
arrested.  A  large  number  of  those  arrested  would  probably  have 
been  far  better  handled  by  parental  authority  than  by  the  police. 
In  many  instances,  doubtless,  arrest  followed  the  perpetration  of 
some  childish  prank,  and  was  a  greater  crime  than  the  oflfence 
for  which  it  was  made.  Most  men  can  recall  offences  of  their 
own  that  would  have  obtained  for  them  similar  treatment  had 
they  been  detected.  The  decrease  in  arrests  of  juveniles  during 
the  past  three  years  is  gratifying.  The  conditions  surrounding 
juvenile  delinquents  after  their  arrest  are  at  present  far  better 
than  they  formerly  were.  Chicago  was  a  pioneer  in  bettering 
these  conditions.  It  was  once  the  custom  to  send  children  who 
were  convicted  of  crime  to  the  Bridewell,  where  they  were  herded 
with  adult  criminals  of  all  types,  and  received  a  more  complete 
criminal  education,  which  fitted  them  for  a  higher  sphere  in  the 
world  of  crime  than  they  had  previously  occupied,  and  made 
of  them,  in  most  instances,  incurable  criminals. 

In  1899,  the  State  Legislature  of  Illinois  enacted  a  law  to 
regulate  the  treatment  and  control  of  dependent,  neglected,  and 
delinquent  children.  It  provided  for  the  establishment  of  juvenile 
courts  in  counties  having  more  than  five  hundred  thousand  in- 
habitants, such  courts  to  be  presided  over  by  one  of  the  Circuit 
Court  judges.  In  Chicago  the  Circuit  Court  designated  an  emi- 
nent and  humane  jurist.  Judge  R.  S.  Tuthill,  to  act  in  this 
capacity,  and  one  day  of  every  week  is  devoted  to  the  hearing 
and  adjudication  of  juvenile  cases. 

The  children  coming  within  the  operation  of  the  law  are  those 
who  for  any  reason  are  destitute,  homeless,  or  abandoned,  de- 
pendent upon  the  public  for  support,  deprived  of  proper  parental 
care  or  guardianship,  who  habitually  beg  or  receive  alms,  or 


THERAPEUTICS    OF    SOCIAL    DISEASE        575 

whose  homes,  by  reason  of  neglect,  cruelty,  or  depravity  on  the 
part  of  parents  or  guardians,  are  unfit  places  for  such  children, 
and  those  under  the  age  of  ten  years  who  are  found  begging, 
peddling  or  selling  any  article,  or  singing  or  playing  any  musical 
instrument,  or  who  accompany  or  are  used  as  the  aids  of  any 
person  so  doing.  Children  who  violate  laws,  who  are  incor- 
rigible, or  who  are  growing  up  in  idleness  and  crime  are  placed 
in  the  delinquent  class. 

Any  reputable  resident  of  the  county,  knowing  of  a  child 
who  appears  to  be  neglected,  dependent,  or  delinquent,  may  file 
a  petition  with  the  clerk  of  the  Juvenile  Court,  setting  forth  the 
facts,  verified  by  affidavits.  A  summons  is  then  issued,  requiring 
the  person  or  persons  having  charge  of  the  child  in  question  to 
appear  with  the  child  in  court  at  a  stated  time,  and  the  relative 
or  relatives  of  the  child,  if  there  are  any,  are  also  notified,  and  a 
hearing  is  had,  after  which  the  court  summarily  disposes  of  the 
case  according  to  the  circumstances.  The  act  provides  for  the 
appointment  of  probation  officers,  into  whose  custody  delinquent 
children  may  be  placed,  or  may  be  directed  to  visit  the  homes  of 
the  children  to  inquire  into  their  behavior.  The  court  may  also 
cause  a  child  to  be  placed  in  a  desirable  family  home,  subject  to 
the  friendly  supervision  and  further  order  of  the  court ;  or  the 
court  may  authorize  the  child  to  be  boarded  out  in  some  suitable 
home,  in  case  provision  is  made  by  voluntary  contribution  or 
otherwise  for  the  payment  of  the  board  of  such  child  until  proper 
provision  may  be  made  for  a  permanent  home  without  the  pay- 
ment of  board.  The  court  is  further  empowered  to  commit  a 
delinquent  child,  if  a  boy,  to  any  institution  within  the  county 
incorporated  under  the  laws  of  the  State  that  may  care  for  such 
children,  or  to  a  training  school  for  boys ;  if  a  girl,  to  an  indus- 
trial school  for  girls,  and  if  more  than  ten  years  of  age,  to  the 
State  home  for  juvenile  offenders.  Such  child  may  be  discharged 
whenever,  in  the  opinion  of  the  court,  reformation  is  complete. 

Children  under  the  age  of  sixteen  years  arrested  by  the  police 
may,  instead  of  being  taken  directly  before  a  justice  of  the  peace 
or  a  police  magistrate,  be  taken  directly  into  the  juvenile  court ; 
or,  if  the  child  is  taken  before  a  justice,  it  shall  be  the  duty  of 


576  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

such  magistrate  to  transfer  the  case  to  the  Juvenile  Court,  where 
the  case  may  be  heard  without  petition. 

In  any  case  where  the  court  finds  that  the  parents  are  able 
to  support  their  neglected  child  or  children,  it  may  compel  them 
to  do  so.  Children  under  twelve  years  cannot  be  committed  to 
jail  or  to  a  police  station,  but  must  be  kept  in  some  suitable  place 
provided  by  the  county  or  city  outside  of  the  inclosure  of  a  jail  or 
police  station.  It  is  also  unlawful  to  confine  children  in  the  same 
building  with  adult  convicts.  Outside  of  Cook  County  there  is 
no  suitable  provision  for  delinquents,  and  even  here  the  system  is 
far  from  adequate  or  complete. 

A  large  State  institution — a  home  for  delinquent  boys — is 
planned  to  be  built  at  St.  Charles,  Illinois,  on  approved  crimi- 
nologic  lines.  If  this  is  done,  and  the  home  taken  out  of  politics 
and  placed  in  the  hands  of  competent  scientific  men,  it  can  readily 
be  made  a  model.  It  will  fill  the  long-felt  want  of  caring  for  boys 
who  are  bad,  but  non-criminal,  and  making  useful  citizens  of 
them.  If  conducted  along  industrial  lines,  as  is  proposed,  its 
success  and  usefulness  are  assured. 

It  is  noticeable  that  such  improvement  as  has  been  made  in 
the  management  of  the  juvenile  crime  class  has  been  largely  in 
the  direction  of  measures  to  be  applied  after  the  child  has  com- 
mitted some  overt  act  and  been  arrested.  State  paternalism  is 
not  yet  developed  so  far  as  to  permit  of  a  sufficiently  careful 
supervision  of  children  in  general.  The  healthy  child  of  poor 
parents,  the  healthy  child  of  criminal  parents,  and  the  diseased  or 
degenerate  child  whose  surroundings  are  unfavorable  for  its 
physical  and  intellectual  development  are  still  allowed  to  be  ex- 
posed to  vicissitudes  and  temptations  which  are  prime  factors 
in  the  evolution  of  criminality  and  prostitution.  Private  and 
public  philanthropy  alike  are  wasting  millions  of  money  in  trying 
to  improve  social  conditions  by  working  at  the  top.  There  is  too 
much  "  higher  education,"  and  not  enough  training  of  the  proper 
kind  at  the  bottom  of  the  ladder.  I  would  not  claim  that  the 
immense  amount  of  money  spent  in  sectarian  universities,  foreign 
missions,  and  public  libraries  is  barren  of  results,  but  the  same 
am.ount  of  money  expended  for  the  supervision  and  education  of 


THERAPEUTICS   OF   SOCIAL    DISEASE        577 

children,  and  especially  for  the  amelioration  of  conditions  sur- 
rounding the  class  from  which  criminals  spring,  would  achieve 
results  tenfold  more  valuable  to  humanity.  The  proper  manage- 
ment and  education  of  children  would  involve  an  expenditure  of 
money  that  would  seem  large  at  first,  but  the  investment  would 
pay  large  returns,  for,  before  many  generations  had  elapsed, 
society  would  discover  that  the  prevention  of  degeneracy  in  gen- 
eral, and  crime  in  particular,  would  be  far  more  economic  than 
its  cure. 

In  general,  the  tough  boy  and  girl,  from  whom  thieves  and 
prostitutes  are  bred,  are  the  product  of  the  slums.  As  already 
remarked,  if  society  were  alive  to  its  own  interests,  there  would 
be  no  slums. 

Expensive  jails  and  legal  machinery  appear  to  go  hand  in 
hand  with  a  deficiency  in  number  and  defectiveness  of  quality  of 
educational  institutions  for  children.  The  very  foundation  of 
society  is  the  public  school  system.  The  grammar  school,  espe- 
cially, is  the  bulwark  of  society.  Here  the  future  citizen  is 
moulded.  Money  judiciously  expended  in  the  betterment  and 
extension  of  the  public  school  system  achieves  results  tenfold 
greater  than  that  expended  upon  institutions  devoted  to  the  so- 
called  higher  education.  The  public  school  is,  in  the  long  run, 
the  guardian  of  the  public  purse  and  public  morals.  As  at 
present  conducted,  the  greater  part  of  its  opportunities  is  lost 
because  of  faulty  methods  of  instruction  and  a  lack  of  proper 
proportions  between  physical  and  mental  training. 

The  children  in  our  public  schools  lack  instruction  in  thought 
methods,  chiefly  because  the  instructors  themselves  have  never 
been  taught  to  think.  No  study  is  made  of  the  individual  men- 
tality of  children,  and  more  attention  is  paid  to  a  diversity  of  cur- 
riculum than  to  physiologic  brain  building  and  thoroughness  in 
educational  groundwork.  The  child  who  has  gone  over  the  pre- 
scribed course  of  study  and  received  suitable  marks  is  regarded 
as  having  acquired  a  certain  amount  of  knowledge,  the  result 
being  that  by  the  time  graduation  day  arrives,  the  children  in 
the  higher  grades  have  usually  forgotten  most  of  what  has  been 
learned  in  the  lower.    Children  who  hav^  received  a  smattcrini^ 

37 


5/8  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

of  a  number  of  useful  things,  and  of  some  useless  fads,  leave 
the  school  with  a  defective  thinking  apparatus  and  almost  total 
ignorance  of  geography  and  other  essentials,  and  must  perforce 
be  consoled  by  a  superficial  knowledge  of  educational  frills  and 
furbelows.  This  would  not  be  so  bad,  were  it  not  that  the  golden 
opportunity  for  brain  development  and  thought  training  has  been 
forever  lost  in  a  majority  of  cases,  the  child  being  compelled  to  at 
once  bid  farewell  to  school-days  and  go  to  work  to  earn  a  living. 

The  most  woful  feature  of  all  educational  institutions,  both 
public  and  private,  is  the  lack  of  individual  discrimination  and 
selective  instruction.  A  careful  study  of  the  individual  pupil  is 
rarely  made,  and  such  attempts  as  are  made  in  this  direction  are 
often  frustrated  by  the  incapacity  of  the  teacher,  who  rarely 
knows  more  than  the  rudiments  of  child  study  in  general,  and 
of  child  psychology  in  particular. 

It  is  singular  that  teachers  cannot  be  brought  to  understand 
that  the  inculcation  of  thought  method  and  the  development  of 
reasoning  in  the  child  should  be  the  end  and  aim  of  the  training 
of  children.  A  single  study,  progressively  mastered,  simul- 
taneously with  the  growth  of  the  child's  reasoning  and  powers 
of  observation,  is  of  more  value  than  a  whole  curriculum  studied 
for  the  purpose  of  bringing  the  child's  alleged  knowledge  up  to 
the  graduation  standard.  Less  pains  should  be  taken  to  teach  a 
child  to  "  know,"  and  more  to  teach  it  to  think. 

Perhaps  the  greatest  defect  of  our  educational  system  is  the 
ignorance  of  teachers  of  the  fact  that  brain  development  is  the 
chief  function  of  education  of  childhood  and  youth.  Teachers 
not  only  fail  to  recognize  this  objective-point  of  study  method, 
but  they  also  seem  to  be  unaware  of  the  physiologic  truth  that  the 
special  senses  are  not  the  only  avenues  through  which  to  develop 
and  mould  the  brain.  That  a  harmonious  balance  between 
physical  and  mental  training  is  necessary  to  healthy  brain  growth 
is  a  terra  incognita  to  the  vast  majority  of  educators.  Improper 
training  of  children  makes  defective  brains.  With  such  materials, 
the  development  of  normal  psychic  inhibitions  and  altruistic  im- 
pulses is  difficult — often  impossible.  Badly  developed,  ill-nour- 
ished brains  are  not  favorable  soil  for  the  development  of  a 


THERAPEUTICS   OF   SOCIAL    DISEASE        579 

healthy  moral  sense  and  thought  capacity.  The  old  adage  of 
mens  sana  in  corpore  sano  is  nowhere  so  applicable  as  in  the 
study  and  treatment  of  degeneracy  and  its  fell  brood  of  social 
diseases. 

A  broad  line  of  distinction  should  be  drawn  between  delin- 
quents and  non-delinquents  in  our  public  schools.  These  insti- 
tutions should  not  be  made  to  bear  responsibilities  that  should 
properly  devolve  upon  reformatories.  Incorrigibly  bad  children 
should  be  kept  out  of  our  schools  altogether.  They  spread  moral 
contagion  and  bad  physical  habits,  from  which  well-behaved 
children  should  be  protected.  A  single  tough  boy  or  girl  may 
corrupt  an  entire  school.  The  minds  of  children  are  plastic,  and 
respond  only  too  readily  to  evil  influences. 

PHYSICAL   TRAINING 

The  brain  is  a  motor  as  well  as  a  thought  organ.  Mental 
training  is  admitted  by  all  to  develop  the  brain,  but  the  potency 
of  physical  training  in  the  same  direction  is  not  generally  under- 
stood, hence  educators  follow  the  fatuous  method  of  brain 
building  through  the  special  senses  alone. 

Disuse  of  a  limb  produces  atrophy  of  the  motor  centre  that 
controls  it.  Conversely,  use  of  the  muscle,  as  has  been  stated  in 
an  earlier  chapter,  improves  brain  nutrition,  not  only  in  the  motor 
areas  immediately  concerned,  but  of  the  organ  as  a  whole.  In 
this  improvement  of  nutrition  the  frontal  lobes  participate.  If, 
simultaneously  with  the  improvement  in  brain  nutrition,  efforts 
be  made  in  the  direction  of  mind  building,  the  results  are  certain 
to  be  immeasurably  better  than  where  mental  training  alone  is 
relied  upon.  When  the  muscle  movements  involved  in  physical 
training  are  such  as  require  skill,  alertness,  judgment  of  distance, 
quickness  of  eye  and  thought,  the  results  are  always  better,  for 
muscle  building  and  mind  building  are  here  coincidental. 

Proper  physical  training  should  be  as  much  a  part  of  the 
education  of  children  as  any  form  of  mental  instruction.  Chil- 
dren should  be  taught  physical  ideals.  The  ancient  Greeks  were 
wiser  than  we,  for  with  the  highest  possililc  standards  of  iiitel- 
lectual  development  they  made  the  "  bod\ -beautiful"  an  ol)ject  of 


58o  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

adoration.  A  somewhat  similar  spirit  should  be  infused  into  the 
minds  of  the  children  of  the  present  day.  The  body-beautiful 
and  the  body-healthy  should  be  made  part  of  the  end  and  aim  of 
culture.  The  eifect  of  physical  training  upon  the  morale,  not 
only  of  children,  but  of  adults,  is  marvellous.  Increased  intel- 
lectual power  and  pride  of  being,  and  the  consciousness  of  ability 
to  do,  that  physical  vigor  imparts,  are  all-sufficient  rewards  for 
the  wise  care  and  training  of  the  body. 

No  school  that  does  not  possess  facilities  for  the  proper 
physical  training  of  its  pupils  is  worthy  of  a  place  among  modern 
educational  institutions ;  yet  where  are  the  public  schools  that 
can  qualify  in  this  respect?  The  department  of  physical  culture 
in  schools  should  be  an  appendage  of  a  general  department  of 
hygienic  instruction  that  should  also  embrace  rudimentary 
anatomy  and  physiology.  These  various  branches  of  instruction, 
aiming  as  they  do  to  teach  the  pupil  to  know  and  care  for  him- 
self, should  not  be  regarded  as  fads,  but  as  the  very  corner-stone 
of  education. 

Hygienic  and  physical  training  methods  have  been  fairly 
tested  in  the  treatment  of  criminals,*  with  results  that  are  most 
convincing.  That  the  first  step  in  inculcating  self-respect  in 
the  criminal  should  be  to  improve  his  physical  condition  and 
make  him  clean  has  been  proved  beyond  peradventure  of  doubt. 
Dirty,  slouchy,  shambling  degenerates  have  been  thereby  trans- 
formed into  at  least  a  semblance  of  normal  social  beings,  even  in 
the  case  of  adults,  and  we  are  justified  in  expecting  still  greater 
things  of  degenerate,  delinquent  children.  If  we  would  have  the 
laws  respected,  the  individuals  from  whom  such  respect  is  de- 
manded must  be  put  upon  a  physical  and  mental  plane  that  shall 
enable  them  to  understand  why  it  is  demanded.  First  of  all,  they 
must  be  given  reason  for  self-respect.  The  man  who  does  not 
respect  himself,  must  of  necessity  be  an  antisocial  being — one 
who  has  no  respect  for  anything  or  anybody.  The  physical  and 
mental   defective    has    neither    motive    nor    capacity    for    self- 


*  Vide  the  various  Reports  of  the  State  Reformatory  of  Elmira,  New 
York. 


THERAPEUTICS    OF    SOCIAL   DISEASE        581 

respect.  He  is  often  so  uncleanly  in  person  and  habits  that  to 
expect  him  to  have  social  instincts  is  a  mockery. 

In  expatiating  upon  the  advantages  of  physical  training,  I 
am  by  no  means  extolling  the  worship  of  muscle.  The  tendency 
of  human  nature  is  to  glorify  the  extremes  of  intellectual  and 
physical  development.  The  popular  standard  of  intellectuality 
is  the  degenerate  genius,  while  the  physical  standard  is  the  mus- 
cular freak.  The  advantages  of  harmonious  physical  and  intel- 
lectual development  are  not  well  understood.  It  is  not  wise  to 
lay  physical  man  as  a  burnt-offering  on  the  altar  of  genius,  nor 
to  sacrifice  intellectual  culture  to  physical  development.  Neither 
the  extraordinary  genius  nor  the  physical  phenomenon  are  such 
potent  factors  in  our  social  system  as  hero-worshippers  would 
have  us  believe.  It  is  the  well-balanced  man  and  woman  who 
furnish  the  power  that  moves  the  world.  The  crank  genius  is, 
after  all,  but  an  incident  in  the  machinery. 

The  acquirement  of  the  happy  medium  between  intellectual 
and  physical  development  would  do  much  to  stamp  out  degen- 
eracy, and,  far  more  than  the  transitory  flight  of  genius  across 
society's  horizon,  would  raise  the  average  of  intellectual  capacity 
of  the  human  race.  The  attempt  to  attain  either  the  physical  or 
intellectual  ideal,  as  ordinarily  measured,  can  bring  only  disaster 
— intellectual  death  on  the  one  hand,  and  physical  death  on  the 
other. 

Both  the  physical  and  intellectual  average  of  the  human  race 
might  be  raised  to  a  plane  approximating  the  physiologic  ideal,  il 
man  would  but  apply  the  same  common-sense  rules  to  the  breed- 
ing of  human  beings  that  he  does  to  that  of  the  lower  animals. 

Under  present  conditions  there  must  be  a  large  propor- 
tion of  weaklings,  both  intellectual  and  physical.  A  more  in- 
telligent treatment  of  these  weaklings  will,  however,  do  much 
towards  the  prevention  of  disease,  pauperism,  and  crime.  More 
attention  should  be  paid  to  the  bodies  of  the  weaklings  in  our 
social  system,  as  a  direct  prophylactic  against  evils  in  the  correc- 
tion of  which  vast  sums  are  yearly  expended.  Degeneracy  and 
its  attendant  evils  must  be  regarded,  primarily,  from  a  strictly 
physical  and  economic  point  of  view,  if  we  would  hope  to  accom- 


582  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

plish  anything  in  the  way  of  prevention  or  cure  of  social  disease. 
When  our  social  system  expends  in  giving  clean,  healthy  bodies 
to  the  individuals  composing  it,  and  especially  to  young  and 
growing  children,  at  least  as  much  as  it  does  on  correctionary  and 
curative  institutions,  the  expense  of  the  complicated  machinery 
of  our  legal,  hospital,  penal,  and  asylum  systems  will  be  enor- 
mously reduced. 

That  physical  training  and  the  simplest  rules  of  hygiene  have 
been  neglected  in  prisons  and  reformatories  is  known  to  every 
physicians  familiar  with  such  institutions.  Von  Ziemssen  says,^ 
"  The  effects  of  lack  of  fresh  air  and  sufficient  out-door  exercise 
can  be  best  studied  in  prisons,  asylums,  and  similar  institutions. 
Tuberculosis  has  ever  been  the  scourge  of  prisons," 

To  expect  good  morals  from  persons  to  whom  we  refuse  the 
conditions  that  conduce  to  good  health  is  absurd. 

There  are  many  exercises,  for  both  the  young  and  adults,  that 
combine  the  elements  of  play  and  physical  training.  The  element 
of  play  should  always  enter  into  physical  training  so  far  as 
possible.  When  physical  training  becomes  drudgery,  without 
apparent  object,  the  subject  regards  it  as  a  useless  variety  of 
slavery.  Exercises  in  the  open  air  are,  of  course,  best,  but  they 
are  not  always  practicable. 

Boxing,  fencing,  and  hand-ball  are  ideal  forms  of  in-door 
exercise.  These  sports  increase  self-confidence,  impart  a  whole- 
some respect  for  the  rights  of  others,  train  the  eye,  develop  judg- 
ment, increase  muscle  command  and  equipoise,  improve  the  car- 
riage, and  develop  the  faculty  of  estimating  distance.  The  reflex 
function  of  the  spinal  cord  is  at  the  same  time  so  improved  that 
the  subject  may  escape  serious  injury,  sooner  or  later,  merely 
from  the  superb  reflex  automatic  action  of  the  voluntary  muscles 
that  such  training  imparts.  A  properly  trained  muscle  is  always 
on  guard  against  physical  emergencies. 

The  tedium  of  exercise  is  relieved  by  music.  In  class  ex- 
ercises nothing  is  more  inspiring.    Both  children  and  adults  can 


*  Etiology,  Diagnosis,  and  Therapy  of  Tuberculosis,  Translation  by 
Dr.  D.  J.  Doherty. 


THERAPEUTICS    OF    SOCIAL   DISEASE        583 

be  handled  better  in  class-work  to  the  tune  and  time  of  a  piano 
played  with  due  intelligence  as  to  the  object  to  be  accomplished. 
In  correctionary  institutions  this  is  especially  true.  I  will  remark 
incidentally  that  the  effect  of  music  in  general  upon  degenerates 
is  excellent.  Such  emotional  stimulation  as  is  possible  to  them 
from  music  tends  decidedly  to  improvement  in  their  morale. 
This  is  well  known  as  regards  the  insane,  but  is  by  no  means  ap- 
preciated in  its  bearing  upon  other  degenerates.  It  may  really 
be  regarded  as  one  of  our  remedial  resources  in  institution  work. 

No  form  of  physical  training  is  rational  that  does  not  take 
into  careful  consideration  the  individual  capacity  of  the  subject 
with  whom  it  deals.  In  passing,  I  desire  to  express  my  unquali- 
fied disapproval  of  the  measurement  standard  of  individual 
capacity.  The  comparative  measurements  of  individuals  are 
fallacious  standards  by  which  to  prescribe  forms  of  exercise. 
That  an  individual  of  a  given  height  and  weight  should  present 
certain  proportionate  measurements  of  the  neck,  chest,  forearm, 
arm,  thigh,  and  calf  is  to  me  the  height  of  absurdity.  It  might  as 
well  be  argued  that  an  individual  with  a  certain  size  of  cranium 
should  be  the  possessor  of  a  nose  or  ears  of  certain  definite  pro- 
portions, or  that  an  individual  of  a  given  height  and  weight 
should  have  hands  and  feet  of  a  certain  size.  This  rule  will  do 
very  well  in  art,  but  it  is  rank  fallacy  in  physiologic  training. 

Chest  measurements  are  particularly  fallacious  as  determin- 
ing chest  capacity  and  the  proper  size  of  chest  relative  to  the 
general  measurements  of  a  given  individual.  Much  depends 
upon  the  conformation  of  the  chest  as  to  the  relative  degree  of 
lung  capacity  and  the  proportionate  measurements  relative  to  the 
rest  of  the  body.  The  relative  strength  of  the  chest  walls  and 
degree  of  elasticity  of  the  lung  tissue  itself  are  factors  to  be 
reckoned  with,  independently  of  the  chest  measurements.  There 
is  something  amusing  in  the  competitive  spirometer  tests  of  the 
lungs  in  different  subjects.  There  are  certain  individuals  who, 
according  to  tape  measurements,  have  enormous  chest  capacity, 
yet  show  up  very  unfavorably  when  compared  with  certain  nar- 
row-chested, spindling  individuals,  so  far  as  the  spirometer  test 
is  concerned.     That  the  spirometer  test  is   fallacious  I   freely 


584  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

admit,  still  it  is  of  value  in  making  comparisons  in  this  particular 
direction. 

The  first  step  in  any  given  case  should  be  to  determine  as 
nearly  as  possible  the  inherent  individual  muscular  capacity.  No 
effort  should  be  made  to  develop  the  subject  so  that  his  propor- 
tionate measurements  will  correspond  with  even  an  average 
arbitrary  standard.  If  the  subject  has  a  long,  narrow  chest, 
narrow  shoulders,  and  small  bones,  with  naturally  small  muscular 
development,  any  attempt  to  develop  proportionate  measurements 
to  correspond  with  a  given  standard  will  result  in  disaster.  In 
brief,  the  end  and  aim  of  physical  training  is  to  develop  the 
natural  physical  capital  of  the  individual  to  its  highest  degree. 
An  attempt  should  be  made  to  get  out  of  each  subject  the  best 
that  is  in  him,  not  to  build  up  muscle  or  give  strength  beyond 
his  inherent  capacity.  The  standards  for  A  and  B  may  vary 
widely. 

Specialism  in  muscle  building  is  justifiable  only  in  so  far  as 
it  tends  to  bring  up  any  given  portion  of  the  body  to  the  relative 
— i.e.,  the  symmetric — proportions  normal  to  the  particular 
individual. 

The  fundamental  principle  of  all  forms  of  physical  training 
should  be  the  development  of  volitional  control  over  the  muscles. 
Brain-cell  should  dominate  muscle-fibre.  The  more  thoroughly 
the  muscles  are  under  control,  the  better  their  development,  and 
the  more  useful  the  individual  is  likely  to  be,  to  both  himself 
and  society. 

It  should  be  the  function  of  our  educational  system  to  bring 
brain  and  muscle  up  to  the  highest  and  most  useful  standard 
possible  to  the  given  individual.  That  psychic  control  and 
muscle  development  are  coequivalents,  and  that  a  healthy  mus- 
cular system  means,  as  a  rule,  healthy  viscera,  should  never  be 
forgotten.  Still  less  should  it  be  forgotten  that  good  health  and 
good  morals  are  likely  to  go  hand  in  hand. 

Military  discipline  should  be  a  part  of  the  training  of  children, 
delinquent  and  non-delinquent.  It  should  also  be  a  feature  in 
the  reformation  of  the  adult  criminal.  From  the  stand-point  of 
physical  training  it  is  excellent.     It  imparts  pride  of  bearing. 


THERAPEUTICS    OF    SOCIAL   DISEASE        585 

dignity,  and  intelligent  submission  to  authority,  and  improves 
the  morale  in  general,  to  a  degree  that  only  the  experienced  can 
fully  appreciate.  Whatever  may  be  said  of  war  as  a  blot  upon 
civilization,  the  military  drill  that  is  considered  an  essential  part 
of  the  art  of  war  is  a  method  of  training  that  gives  superb 
disciplinary  results.  Reformatory  institutions  patterned  to  a 
certain  degree  after  some  of  our  military  schools  would  work 
wonders.  Such  institutions,  associated  with  training-ships  under 
State  or  government  control,  would  solve  the  problem  of  what 
to  do  to  make  decent  men  of  a  large  proportion  of  delinquent 
lads,  and  would  save  some  non-delinquents  from  crime.  Delin- 
quents and  non-delinquents  should,  of  course,  be  kept  apart. 

How  many  parents  of  boys  who  chafe  under,  or  completely 
rebel  against,  parental  and  school  control  have  asked  the  ques- 
tion, "  What  can  I  do  to  save  him,  and  make  a  useful  man  of 
him  ?"    And  who  at  present  can  advise  such  parents  ? 

If  our  government  were  wise  in  its  generation  and  did  its  full 
duty  towards  children,  there  would  be  no  dearth  of  trained  men 
to  meet  emergencies  which,  however  abhorrent  the  idea  of  war 
may  be,  are  liable  to  arise  at  any  time,  as  conditions  now  are. 
Military  training-schools  would  be  very  useful  factors  in  the 
management  of  adult  offenders,  providing  the  necessary  indus- 
trial training  were  added.  The  value  of  military  discipline  has 
been  conclusively  shown  at  the  Elmira  Reformatory. 

MANUAL   AND    INDUSTRIAL   TRAINING 

A  glimmer  of  light  is  beginning  to  dawn  upon  the  educational 
horizon.  A  few  broad-minded  pioneers  are  teaching  that  our 
educational  methods  are  radically  wrong,  so  far,  at  least,  as  the 
training  of  children  is  concerned.  In  the  long  run,  labor  is  the 
most  potent  factor  in  our  social  system.  The  man  who  can  pro- 
duce something  useful,  to  himself  or  to  humanity,  outside  of  the 
realm  of  letters  and  the  arts,  is  the  backbone  of  civilization.  The 
man  who  honestly  earns  his  bread  by  the  sweat  of  his  brow  or  the 
cunning  of  his  hands  is  the  uncrowned  king  of  the  earth.  He 
has,  however,  been  looked  upon  askance  by  many  of  the  youtli  of 
our  land  for  some  generations.    We  have  drifted  away  from  the 


586  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

simplicity  and  industry  of  our  forefathers.  The  sons  and  daugh- 
ters of  the  toiler  have  acquired  just  enough  of  learning  and 
ambition  to  make  them  despise  honest  labor.  In  the  eyes  of  the 
latter-day  youth  there  is  something  undignified  in  the  handling 
of  the  broom,  something  degrading  in  the  screech  of  the  car- 
penter's plane,  something  vulgar  in  the  dust  and  soot  that  be- 
grime the  brow  of  the  man  at  the  engine's  lever,  something  dis- 
creditable about  the  blue  overalls  of  the  man  who  "  does  things." 
This  sentiment  is  filling,  and  while  it  endures  will  continue  to 
fill,  our  jails,  almshouses,  hospitals,  asylums,  and  reformatories. 

Children  should  be  taught  that  idleness  is  not  only  a  vice, 
but  the  parent  of  all  vices  and  crimes.  Idleness  should  be  penal- 
ized. The  physically  capable  man  or  woman  who  is  not  a  pro- 
ducer and  has  no  legitimate  means  of  support  is  a  burden  upon 
society  that  cannot  justly  demand  toleration.  The  mendicant 
and  the  thief  are  alike  poisonous  fungi  upon  the  body  social. 
The  idler  who  can  work,  but  will  not,  like  the  thief,  should  be 
eliminated.  The  human  organism,  like  all  others,  when  it  be- 
comes parasitic,  merely  eats  and  reproduces.  All  the  higher 
attributes  disappear. 

Ease  of  subsistence  leads  to  degeneracy  as  surely  as  does  the 
opposite  extreme.  Just  as  the  European  aristocracy,  bred  to 
sloth  and  idleness,  has  degenerated,  so  will  the  American  plu- 
tocracy. Worst  of  all,  the  poisonous  taint  of  the  plutocratic  de- 
generate will  contaminate  our  entire  social  system.  Caste  does 
not  wall  him  off,  as  it  does  the  aristocrat  of  Europe.  His  ex- 
ample is  pernicious  to  the  children  of  the  American  proletariat, 
who  may  aspire  to  at  least  the  habits  of  the  plutocrat.  Our 
democracy  guarantees  him  this  privilege. 

There  should  be  no  room  for  the  idler,  rich  or  poor,  least  of 
all  for  him  whose  father's  speculations  or  business  energy  have 
made  independent  of  necessity.  Every  idler  should  be  weighed 
in  the  same  balance.  The  matinee  "  masher"  and  the  "  knight  of 
the  dusty  road"  should  be  placed  upon  the  same  level  in  the  eyes 
of  the  law,  and  both  be  put  to  work.  There  should  be  no  dis- 
tinction between  dudes  and  tramps.  Society's  war-cry  should  be, 
"  Down  with  the  drones !" 


THERAPEUTICS    OF    SOCIAL    DISEASE        587 

Manual  labor  should  be  dignified,  not  degraded.  The  child 
should  be  taught  the  dignity  and  necessity  of  labor  as  soon  as  he 
is  out  of  his  swaddling  clothes,  and  he  should  never  be  permitted 
to  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  his  chief  aim  in  life  is  such  industry 
as  will  make  him  useful  to  the  world. 

Pity  'tis  that  society  is  daily  drifting  further  and  further  from 
the  ideal.  The  educational  reformer  along  industrial  and  manual 
training  lines  is  as  yet  but  a  drop  in  the  sea  of  progress.  He  is 
doing  the  best  he  can  to  leaven  society's  loaf  of  ignorance,  but 
he  has  but  barely  succeeded  in  making  his  voice  heard  in  the 
wilderness.  As  conditions  now  are,  the  "  genteel"  occupations 
and  professions  are  overdone,  and  all  clerical  positions  are  over- 
crowded. The  men  who  have  useful  trades  or  are  mechanicians 
and  the  women  who  can  and  will  do  housework  will  be  the  kings 
and  queens  of  the  society  of  the  future.  Those  who  know  how  to 
do  something  useful  and  are  not  ashamed  to  do  it  are  bound  to 
dominate  eventually,  for  they  are  the  true  independents.  The 
plutocrat  and  the  "  would  be,"  with  the  lily-white  palms,  will  one 
day  rank  as  did  the  aristocrats  of  France  during  the  Revolution. 
The  same  treatment  may  not  be  accorded  them,  but  they  will  be 
compelled  to  render  an  accounting  just  the  same. 

The  sooner  our  children  understand  that  our  entire  social 
system  is  primarily  supported  by  the  broad,  calloused,  brown 
palm  of  the  hard-working  farmer,  the  better.  Having  learned 
this,  they  should  be  taught  to  respect  that  which  alone  makes 
civilized  human  life  possible — work  with  the  hands.  Genteel 
overwork  and  under-pay,  a  living  wage  with  extravagant  habits, 
modest  means  joined  to  foolish  ambitions, — these  are  the  things 
that  lead  to  prostitution,  pauperism,  and  crime.  The  underpaid 
or  extravagant  clerk  and  the  unsuccessful  lawyer  or  doctor  alike 
furnish  their  quota  of  candidates  for  the  Under  World. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  boy  who  scorns  his  father's  hod  or 
engine  and  the  girl  who  loathes  her  mother's  wash-tub  are 
striving  for  higher  ideals.  Perhaps,  but  it  must  be  remembered 
that  honest  labor  and  the  inspiration  and  gratification  of  true 
higher  ideals  are  not  incompatible, — not  so  long  as  good  l^ooks 
are  as  cheap  as  they  now  are. 


588  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

The  industrial  and  manual  training  school  is  slowly  but 
surely  gaining  ground,  and  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  sturdy 
pioneers  who  have  fought  so  nobly  to  direct  our  educational 
trend  into  rational  channels  may  live  to  see  the  general  dissemi- 
nation of  such  institutions  throughout  the  land. 

That  industrial  and  manual  training  schools  for  delinquent 
and  dependent  children  are  indispensable  is  not  likely  to  be  dis- 
puted by  any  one  who  is  in  the  least  degree  familiar  with  the  sub- 
ject. As  a  model  institution,  that  founded  for  negroes  by  Booker 
T.  Washington,  at  Tuskegee,  cannot  be  excelled.  At  this  institute 
there  are  such  departments  as  agriculture,  forestry,  carpentry, 
chemistry,  millinery,  dress-making,  cabinet-making,  domestic 
science,  and  even  nursing. 

The  object  of  training  of  youth,  whether  delinquent  or  non- 
delinquent,  should  be  to  teach  the  brain  to  think  and  the  hands  to 
act.  In  all  institutions  for  youth,  and  more  particularly  in  those 
devoted  to  the  reformation  of  juvenile  offenders,  especial  pains 
should  be  taken  to  discover  individual  capacity.  The  ideal  insti- 
tution will  be  that  which  shall  combine  physical  and  military 
training  with  industrial  and  manual  education  and  the  essentials 
of  book-learning. 

Young  dependents,  and  more  especially  delinquents,  should 
be  regarded  as  wards  of  the  State  until  they  have  attained  a 
degree  of  physical  and  mental  development  which  shall  enable 
them  to  sustain  themselves  respectably.  State  control,  having 
begun  before  the  child  enters  the  school,  should  not  cease  when 
it  leaves  the  institution ;  the  graduate  should  be  kept  under 
kindly  surveillance  until  such  time  as  he  proved  the  wis- 
dom of  allowing  him  to  become  a  free  and  independent  social 
factor. 

What  has  been  said  regarding  the  education  of  juvenile  de- 
linquents applies  with  equal  force  to  the  adult  criminal,  although, 
unhappily,  we  cannot  hope  for  results  equal  to  those  to  be  ob- 
tained in  the  training  of  juvenile  offenders.  A  Scotchman  once 
said  that  a  wife  was  hard  to  train,  unless  she  was  "  caught 
young."  This  might  be  applied  to  the  criminal.  In  order  to 
accomplish  the  best  results  he  must  be  caught  young.    But  even 


THERAPEUTICS    OF    SOCIAL   DISEASE        589 

the  case  of  the  adult  is  not  always  hopeless  if  the  training  be 
conducted  along  rational  lines. 

Success  in  the  training  of  the  grown-up  criminal  is  inversely 
to  the  degree  in  which  the  theory  of  reformation  by  punish- 
ment is  allowed  to  dominate.  Our  past  record  has  a  pessimistic 
flavor,  because  of  the  many  defects  of  our  system.  It  is  as  yet 
too  early  to  say  just  what  we  can  do  along  rational  lines;  the 
era  of  criminologic  reform  is  but  just  dawning.  So  far  as  ex- 
perience has  gone,  the  situation  is  hopeful  beyond  the  wildest 
dreams  of  all  of  the  past  and  of  the  majority  of  the  present 
generation  of  moral  reformers  and  penologists. 

It  is  still  the  custom  to  try  to  reform  the  convict  by,  first, 
punishment ;  secondly,  moral  and  religious  persuasion ;  thirdly, 
and  lastly,  teaching  him  part  of  a  trade  that  is  as  useless  to  him  as 
a  knowledge  of  Sanskrit  would  be  to  the  average  man. 

The  adult  criminal  usually  needs  educational  training  of  all 
kinds.  Moral  training  is  a  sine  qua  non,  but,  first  of  all,  he  needs 
to  be  put  in  a  physical  condition  that  will  make  him  receptive,  if 
it  be  possible  to  accomplish  it.  More  than  all,  he  needs  to  be 
taught  the  gospel  of  work,  not  as  a  slave  might  be  taught  under 
the  whip,  but  as  something  that  will  add  dignity  and  responsi- 
bility to  his  life,  and  put  him  beyond  the  necessity  of  crime. 

That  labor  can  be  made  a  valuable  element  in  the  cure  of 
criminality  goes  without  the  saying,  but  as  work  is  conducted  in 
most  prisons  it  is  not  only  a  failure,  but  makes  the  convict  rebel- 
lious against  work  in  general,  and  the  form  he  is  employed  at  in 
particular.  Work  thus  comes  to  be  regarded  by  him  as  a  part  of 
the  general  malevolent  scheme  by  virtue  of  which  society  stamps 
its  foot  upon  his  neck.  To  allow  convicts  to  remain  idle  would 
be  a  wrong  and,  as  experience  has  proved,  would  be  disastrous 
to  them,  mentally  and  physically.  Should  they  cease  to  work, 
insanity  especially  would  be  enormously  increased  among  them. 
I  hold,  however,  that  work  in  the  profits  of  which  the  convict 
does  not  participate  is  as  antisocial  on  the  average  as  the  crime 
for  which  he  was  committed.  The  convict  can  be  taught  the 
social  obligation  to  work  and  the  sweets  of  labor — a  new  idea  this 
is  to  him — only  by  allowing  him  to  share  in  its  fruits.     Every 


590  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

convict  should  be  compelled  to  earn  his  sustenance,  but  every  dol- 
lar over  and  above  the  cost  of  his  keep  should  be  his.  He  should 
not  be  permitted  to  cost  the  State  one  penny ;  even  the  costs  of 
his  trial  and  transportation  should  be  charged  up  to  him ;  but 
anything  that  he  may  earn  above  his  just  obligation  to  the  State 
should  be  credited  to  him.  By  the  time  they  were  discharged, 
many  criminals  would  thereby  have  acquired  capital  sufficient  to 
enable  them  to  get  a  fresh  start  in  life,  and  on  an  honest  basis. 

That  prison  labor  is  the  bogey  man  of  organized  labor  I  am 
well  aware,  but  the  honest  workman  is  not  always  logical.  Every 
man  is  entitled  to  self-support  by  honest  work ;  indeed,  he  is  in 
duty  bound  to  so  support  himself.  The  refusal  or  inability  of  the 
criminal  to  exercise  this  right  is  primarily  responsible  for  his 
being  in  jail.  When  at  liberty,  he  is  a  burden  on  the  tax-payer. 
Shall  the  burden  on  the  latter  be  perpetuated  when  the  criminal  is 
safely  lodged  in  jail?  Prison  labor  should  be  permitted  to  com- 
pete in  the  open  market  with  other  labor,  but  on  a  fair  basis. 
The  convict  must  bear  his  share  of  society's  burdens,  and  should 
have  his  due  in  the  matter  of  the  profits  of  his  labor,  but  should 
not  be  allowed  to  become  a  factor  in  underselling  honest  labor. 
The  practice  of  farming  out  convict  labor  on  "  skin"  contracts 
is  a  heinous  crime.  The  prison  camps  of  the  United  States  are 
a  disgrace  to  humanity.  Nobody  should  ever  be  permitted  to 
make  money  out  of  wards  of  the  State.  Were  the  contractors 
for  prison  labor  to  pay  regular  wages,  which,  after  deducting 
the  cost  of  his  keep,  would  be  deposited  to  the  credit  of  the  con- 
vict, exception  could  hardly  be  taken  to  it,  always  providing  the 
labor  was  such  as  should  be  useful  to  the  prisoner  in  private  life. 

In  assigning  convicts  to  a  given  kind  of  labor,  an  attempt 
should  be  made,  so  far  as  possible,  to  ascertain  his  individual 
bent  as  well  as  his  physical  capacity. 

The  opportunities  that  this  country  presents  for  the  utiliza- 
tion of  convict  labor  are  immense.  The  country  is  yearning  for 
good  public  roads,  that  shall  enable  a  wheelman  or  an  auto- 
mobilist  to  traverse  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land  as  upon 
a  boulevard ;  we  need  a  great  inland  waterway  and  military 
roads ;    our  rivers  and  harbors  need  improvements ;    the  great 


THERAPEUTICS    OF    SOCIAL    DISEASE        591 

Mississippi  needs  better  levees  ;  thousands  upon  thousands  of 
acres  of  Western  land  are  thirsting  for  a  draught  of  the  life- 
giving  water  that  shall  transform  our  deserts  into  gardens ; 
there  is,  indeed,  no  lack  of  opportunities  whereby  to  make  our 
army  of  idlers  and  criminals  self-supporting. 

When  once  a  convict  has  been  discharged  from  prison,  the 
heaviest  penalties  should  be  inflicted  upon  any  person  or  persons 
who  shall  place  obstacles  in  the  way  of  his  getting  an  honest 
living.  Such  persons  should  be  logically  treated  as  accessories 
to  crime.  The  man  who  shall  discharge  or  aid  and  abet  the  dis- 
charge from  employment  of  a  person  because  of  his  criminal 
record  should  be  made  to  feel  that  the  milk  of  human  kindness  is 
less  expensive  than  man's  inhumanity  to  man. 

PUNISHMENT 

Punishment  as  a  specific  for  crime  is  a  failure.  Punishment 
has  not  prevented  increase  of  crime,  as  statistics  show  ;  this,  with 
the  admission  that  the  criminal  himself  may  regard  as  punish- 
ment rational  measures  for  his  redemption  or  for  the  protection 
of  society,  which  an  enlightened  intelligence  would  not  prescribe 
for  punitive,  but  for  curative,  purposes,  and  with  the  further 
qualification  that  punishment  of  some  kind  and  degree  is  indis- 
pensable in  the  prevention  of  crime  in  general,  and  in  the  manage- 
ment of  the  criminal  in  particular. 

The  theory  of  punishment  had  its  birth  in  that  innate  savagery 
of  the  human  race  which,  however  it  may  have  been  blunted  and 
glossed  over  with  the  veneer  of  advancing  civilization,  still  exists. 
Its  fires  are  concealed  from  view,  but  they  are  smouldering  just 
the  same,  and  when  given  the  smallest  vent  break  forth  in  all 
their  primal  fury.  The  Mosaic  law  of  "  an  eye  for  an  eye ;  a 
tooth  for  a  tooth,"  was  but  the  verbal  crystallization  of  individual 
revenge  into  social  revenge.  Like  most  of  man's  inhumanity  to 
his  kind,  barbarities  of  social  revenge  have  been  supported  by 
scriptural  authority;  hence  their  appearance  in  various  social 
systems  is  not  to  be  wondered  at. 

The  crucifix,  the  Inquisition,  the  Hulks  of  the  Thamos.  the 
stocks,  the  whipping-post,  the  guillotine  and  galleys  of  IVancc, 


592  THE   DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

the  Siberian  steppes  and  the  Russian  knout,  the  prison  camps  of 
the  South,  the  stench  of  scorching  human  flesh  that  rises  from  the 
lynchers'  fire,  and  the  ghastly  thing  that  swings  from  the  gallows 
tree,  have  alike  borne  witness  to  the  savagery  of  man  and  the 
revengefulness  of  society. 

The  acme  of  cruelty  of  man  to  his  kind  was  attained  in  the 
darksome  days  when  church  and  state  joined  hands,  dipped 
them  in  human  blood  and  human  tears,  and  listened  to  the  agon- 
ized shrieks  of  tortured  human  beings  as  to  ravishing  music.  The 
record  of  the  "  Holy"  Spanish  Inquisition  is  the  darkest  stain 
on  the  pages  of  human  history.  It  was  so  monstrous  a  thing  that 
only  the  mind  of  him  who  knows  human  nature  for  what  it  really 
is  can  think  of  it  as  something  that  once  had  reality.  For  acts 
now  considered  innocent  men  were  put  to  nameless  torture.  For 
expressions  of  religious  faith  and  politics  men  were  nailed  to 
floors,  slashed  with  knives,  and  their  wounds  filled  with  vinegar 
and  hot  pitch.  Their  bones  were  broken  with  iron  bars ;  they 
were  then  doubled  backward  and  placed  on  a  wheel  and  slowly 
crushed  to  death,  to  be  finally  quartered  and  scattered  to  the  four 
winds.  Men  were  spiked  to  platforms  in  the  open  air,  their  eye- 
lids cut  ofT  and  the  naked  eyeballs  exposed  to  the  noonday  sun. 
They  were  then  tortured  with  spikes,  blazing  oil,  and  knives. 

Horses  were  hitched  to  some  unfortunates'  arms  and  legs  to 
pull  them  apart,  after  their  bones  had  been  broken  and  their  eyes 
cut  out,  while  women — the  prototypes  of  some  modern  humani- 
tarians— cried  out  in  horror  against  the  officials  for  whipping 
the  poor  horses  that  had  failed  to  sever  the  tendons  of  the  dying 
victims  at  the  first  trial.  Others  were  tortured  with  indescribable 
atrocity,  then  smeared  with  sweet  syrup  and  bandaged  into  nar- 
row, coffin-like  boxes,  full  of  holes,  which  were  placed  on  the 
ground  in  the  open  air.  Insects  swarmed  in  and  filled  the  victim 
with  eggs,  and  in  a  day  or  two  the  vermin  hatched  out  and  began 
eating  him  alive. 

Among  the  tortures  of  the  Inquisition  was  the  original  water 
punishment,  thus  described  by  Wines :  • 

"  Op.  cit. 


THERAPEUTICS    OF   SOCIAL   DISEASE        593 

"  The  prisoner's  body  was  extended  at  full  length  upon  a  frame 
so  constructed  as  to  bend  slightly  backward  and  elevate  the  feet  above 
the  head.  The  face  was  covered  with  a  cloth,  kept  wet  by  constantly- 
falling  drops  of  water,  which  had  to  be  swallowed  in  order  to  prevent 
suffocation.  At  the  same  time  the  cords  by  which  the  victim  was  bound 
were  constantly  drawn  tighter  by  a  tourniquet,  so  as  to  cut  into  the  flesh 
until  it  bled." 


And  all  this  was  approved  by  church  and  state,  and  by  men 
great  in  the  politics  of  the  day. 

Napoleon,  nearly  one  hundred  years  ago,  ordered  the  Inquisi- 
tion destroyed.  The  existence  of  the  subterranean  torture  cham- 
bers was  denied,  and  the  soldiers  could  not  find  them  until  the 
marble  floors  of  the  grand  palaces  were  flooded  with  water.  The 
subtle  fluid  found  entrance  to  the  openings.  Prodding  bayonets 
found  the  secret  springs  to  the  locks,  and  down  in  darkness  and 
filth,  from  dungeons  beneath  the  gilded  chambers  of  prelates  and 
courts  of  law,  prisoners  were  dragged  out,  their  manacles  en- 
crusted with  vermin, — some  of  the  prisoners  dead,  some  dying, 
some  pitiful  maniacs. 

The  Inquisition  had  lasted  for  over  three  hundred  years, 
during  which  its  victims  numbered  341,021,  of  whom  31,912 
were  burned  alive,^ — a  record  of  iniquities  for  which  an  eternity 
of  hell  would  scarce  be  enough  to  give  him  who  instituted  it — 
that  homicidal  maniac,  Torquemada — a  sufficiently  large  dose  of 
his  own  medicine. 

It  is  not  flattering  to  humanity  to  think  that  the  Inquisition 
was  destroyed,  not  because  the  world  revolted  against  it,  but 
merely  because  Napoleon  was  jealous  of  its  powers, — and  that 
so  recently  as  1808.  Still  less  flattering  is  the  thought  that  the 
reaction  against  barbarity  in  the  treatment  of  criminals  is  of 
such  recent  date  that  it  is  not  yet  general,  and  prisoners  arc  to-day 
being  abused  worse  than  dogs.  It  is  but  a  few  days  since  the 
Georgia  State  Legislature  was  compelled  to  pass  a  law  pro- 
hibiting the  flogging  of  women  convicts.  And  this,  I  believe,  is 
A.D.  1904! 

^  F.  H.  Wines,  op.  cit. 
38 


594  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

Not  much  more  than  three  decades  ago  the  jail  at  Fort  Smith, 
Arkansas, — a  Federal  prison,  by  the  way, — was  almost  as  bad  as 
the  Black  Hole  of  Calcutta.  At  one  time  a  member  of  the  grand 
jury  threatened  to  expose  its  horrors,  and  procured  some  of  the 
maggoty  meat  and  bread  with  which  the  prisoners  were  fed, 
threatening  to  send  it  on  to  Washington  as  evidence.  Through 
the  efforts  of  the  presiding  judge  he  was  dissuaded  from  it.'* 
The  evil  conditions  prevailed  for  many  years.  Possibly  the 
resulting  moral  impression  on  criminals  was  salutary,  for  with 
them.  Fort  Smith  and  hell  were  synonymous. 

And  it  is  not  only  by  the  infliction  of  physical  barbarities  that 
society  is  still  committing  crimes  against  criminals.  The  environ- 
ments in  which  the  criminal  is  often  placed  after  he  is  caught 
serve  merely  to  degrade  him.  A  sailor  who  had  seen  much  of 
primitive  races  once  said,  "  I  have  never  had  any  trouble  with 
natives.  I  find  that  the  way  to  inspire  true  manliness  in  a  man 
is  to  treat  him  like  a  man,  and  thus  inspire  self-respect."  °  Our 
prison  authorities  might  learn  something  from  the  foregoing. 
Especially  might  they  learn  that  ward  heelers,  roughs,  bullies, 
and  ignorant  political  "  bums,"  who  are  tougher  than  the  prison- 
ers they  guard,  should  never  be  placed  in  authority  over  men 
whom  it  is  desired  to  uplift.  For  ages  society  has  busied  itself 
in  preventing  the  criminal  from  ever  forgetting  that  he  is  a  crimi- 
nal, in  or  out  of  jail.  Unnecessarily  harsh  discipline  has  been  a 
part  of  the  machinery  that  has  impressed  his  position  upon  him. 
The  distinctive  dress  and  the  closely  cropped  hair — which,  of 
course,  have  their  advantages  in  case  of  an  escape — are  of  the 
same  kidney  as  the  red  hot  iron,  with  which  France  was  once 
wont  to  ornament  the  shoulders  of  her  convicts.  We  have  not 
had  the  fleur  de  lis,  but  there  are  more  ways  than  one  of  branding 
the  under  dog  for  life. 

The  failure  of  punishment  in  the  cure  of  criminality  is  easy 
to  explain  ;  it  has  been  directed  at  the  crime  and  not  at  the  crimi- 
nal.    We  laugh  at  the  operatic   Mikado's   sublime   object  of 


*  Hell  on  the  Border,  S.  W.  Harmon. 

•The  Cruise  of  the  Cachelot,  Frank  T,  Bullen. 


THERAPEUTICS    OF    SOCIAL    DISEASE        595 

making  "  the  punishment  fit  the  crime,"  yet  this  is  precisely  what 
our  system  of  penology  has  always  essayed  to  do.  Punishment 
has  ever  been  meted  out  according  to  the  magnitude  of  the  crime  ; 
which  magnitude  has  varied  with  the  notions  and  sympathies  of 
the  judge  and  jury,  the  eloquence  of  tiie  conflicting  lawyers,  and 
the  pull  of  the  prisoner,  with  an  occasional  dash  of  bribery 
thrown  in.  Over  all  hangs  that  fickle  thing,  public  sentiment,  or 
such  editorial  comments  as  the  newspapers  choose  to  label  public 
sentiment. 

The  endorsement  of  ecclesiastic  authority  has  not  been  want- 
ing to  uphold  barbarities  of  punishment.  An  archbishop  of  the 
Church  of  England  wrote :  ^" 

"  Even  this  person  [a  convict  in  a  penal  colony]  entertained  hopes 
of  improvement  in  his  condition,  which  should  be  excluded  from  a  good 
penal  system." 

The  reverend  humanitarian  further  said: 

"  Punishment  is  not  only  not  severe  enough,  but  there  is  not  enough 
of  it  inflicted." 

His  commentator  wrote : 

"  By  my  soul's  hope  of  rest, 
I'd  rather  have  been  born,  ere  man  was  blest 
With  the  pure  dawn  of  revelation's  light ; 
Yea;    rather  plunge  me  back  in  Pagan  night, 
And  take  my  chance  with  Socrates  for  bliss, 
Than  be  a  Christian  of  a  faith  like  this." 

The  advocates  of  extremes  of  punishment  have  labored  chiefly 
with  mouth  and  pen ;  they  have  given  little  serious  study  to  the 
crime  problem.  That  "  crime  thrives  on  severe  penalties"  should 
have  been  sufficiently  plain,  but  no  amount  oi  cxporicnrc  suffices 
to  shed  light  upon  fat  wits ;  still  less  is  it  possible  to  illuniiiic  the 
souls  of  bigots,  and  of  those  whose  ideas  of  the  treatment  of 


*'01d  Bailey  Experiences,  Anonymous,  London,  1833. 


596  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

criminals  are  but  a  reflex  of  their  own  innate  savagery  and 
brutality. 

As  an  illustration  of  magisterial  stupidit}-,  and  a  b}-  no  means 
exceptional  example,  the  remarks  made  by  an  English  magis- 
trate some  years  ago  are  very  pertinent.  In  sentencing  a  young 
boy,  this  learned  gentleman,  with  a  sagacity  and  acumen  worthy 
of  some  of  the  breed  at  the  present  day,  said : 

"  Prisoner,  what  can  we  do  with  you  ?  We  have  done  everything  to 
reclaim  you.  We  have  imprisoned  you  over  and  over  again,  and  given 
you  frequent  floggings.  Yet  all  is  of  no  use.  The  sentence  of  the  court 
is  that  you  be  transported  for  seven  years."  " 

And  the  boy  was  thus  enabled  to  escape  that  magistrate  and 
his  ilk  for  a  while,  giving  him  the  only  possible  chance  he  had 
ever  had  to  improve,  for  Van  Dieman's  Land,  bad  as  it  was,  must 
have  been  an  improvement  over  any  previous  attempts  at  his 
reform. 

The  attitude  of  the  magistrate  in  question  was  merely  the  idea 
that  has  always  dominated  criminal  jurisprudence. 

It  seems  singular  that  barbarities  of  punishment  should  have 
prevailed  so  long.  The  most  superficial  observer  should  have 
seen  its  fallacy.  There  has  been  no  lack  of  protest  against  it  by 
reflective  and  observant  minds.  Nearly  three-quarters  of  a  cen- 
tury ago  a  student  of  the  subject  said,  "  It  is  impossible  for  those 
who  are  strangers  to  these  beings  to  know  the  contempt  that 
prisoners,  both  men  and  boys,  generally,  have  for  corporeal  pun- 
ishment.'*  It  seems  that,  in  English  prisons,  the  convicts  wel- 
comed a  flogging  as  a  substitute  for  other  forms  of  punishment, 
and  considered  him  lucky  who  should  be  flogged  instead  of  being 
submitted  to  confinement.  Indeed,  they  often  boasted  of  the 
whippings  they  had  suffered,  as  of  something  aggrandizing  in 
the  eyes  of  their  fellows. 

With  regard  to  brutality  in  the  treatment  of  criminals  in 
general,  it  may  be  fairly  said  that  the  man  who  presumes  to 
abuse  or  degrade  a  criminal,  simply  because  he  is  a  criminal  and 

"  Old  Bailey  Experiences. 


THERAPEUTICS    OF    SOCIAL    DISEASE        597 

helpless,  thus  attempting  to  place  him  upon  a  level  with  dumb 
brutes,  assumes  a  fearful  responsibility,  social  and  moral.  The 
criminal  pays  his  debt  in  full  measure  of  vengeance,  sooner  or 
later,  but,  unfortunately,  it  is  rarely  the  perpetrator  of  the  bru- 
tality who  suffers.  Occasionally,  however,  an  immediate  revolt 
occurs,  and  a  brutal  keeper  is  killed,  or  the  victim  of  the  brutality 
himself  dies  by  his  own  hand  rather  than  live  in  an  atmosphere  of 
abuse  and  humiliation.  The  more  humanizing  the  influences 
brought  to  bear  upon  the  imprisoned  criminal,  the  better  for 
society.  Brutality  degrades  and  brutalizes  both  the  perpetrator 
and  his  victim.  The  latter  becomes  more  antagonistic  to  society 
and  its  laws  than  ever ;  he  becomes  embittered  and  wreaks  his 
vengeance,  if  not  upon  the  one  who  has  individually  wronged 
him,  upon  society,  which  his  brutal  keeper  represents. 

One  of  the  most  vital  flaws  in  the  application  of  severe  pun- 
ishment to  the  cure  of  crime  is  the  fact  that  the  typic  criminal, 
who  sees  no  disgrace  in  it,  and  is  relatively  anesthetic  to  it,  is 
the  one  who  gets  the  brutal  treatment,  while  the  genteel  occa- 
sional, who  might  perhaps  be  improved  by  a  little  physical  dis- 
comfort, is  rarely  prescribed  for  in  that  manner. 

In  some  instances  injustice  to  the  mass  of  prisoners  in  a  peni- 
tentiary is  wrought  through  purchased  favoritism  shown  to  the 
chosen  few.  Prisoners  are  very  resentful  of  favoritism.  That 
it  exists  every  prison  official  and  every  convict  knows. 

Were  it  not  for  the  occasional  criminal,  and  the  latent  mur- 
derous instincts  of  even  non-criminal  man,  the  cure  of  crime 
would  be  a  much  simpler  matter,  and  we  could  formulate  a 
general  rule  for  the  cure  of  crime,  which  would  indeed  make 
moral  and  physical  hospitals  of  our  jails  and  reformatories. 

What  place,  then,  has  punishment  in  the  treatment  of  crime? 
In  so  far  as  it  is  deterrent  of  individual  acts  of  criminality  and 
of  certain  special  forms  of  crime,  it  is  valuable  because  of  its 
psychic  effect  on  the  occasional  criminal.  The  fear  and  shame 
of  punishment  unquestionably  have  a  deterrent  effect  upon  the 
criminal  impulses  of  normal  man,  and  of  abnormal  man  so  far 
as  his  brain  is  receptive  of  such  influences,  which  is  obviously  to 
a  limited  extent.     The  restriction  of  liberty,  or  worse,  and  the 


598  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

possible  publicity  of  his  criminal  acts,  unquestionably  have  a 
restraining  influence  in  individual  cases,  despite  the  fact  that 
criminal  statistics  are  growing  worse  rather  than  better.  There 
can  be  no  question  whatever  that  murderers  would  be  more  fre- 
quent if  there  were  no  penalty  attached  to  it ;  nor  that  theft 
would  be  more  frequent  were  there  no  danger  involved.  This 
fact,  however,  does  not  prove  the  wisdom  of  the  punishment 
theory  of  reform  nor  justify  brutality  in  the  treatment  of  con- 
victs ;  neither,  in  my  opinion,  does  it  excuse  capital  punish- 
ment. 

The  more  advanced  penologists  have  discovered  that  the  hope- 
of-reward  principle  is  of  value  in  reformation.  The  attempt  to 
demonstrate  to  the  prisoner  that  right  thinking  and  right  acting 
are  profitable  to  himself  is  meeting  with  great  success  wherever 
it  is  applied. 

Punishment  of  misconduct  among  criminals  in  a  penal  insti- 
tution should  be  balanced  by  a  system  of  rewards,  and  consist  so 
far  as  possible  in  withholding  or  deprivation  of  those  rewards. 
A  system  that  prescribes  discomforts  for  evil  actions,  yet  holds 
out  no  inducements  for  proper  conduct,  is  a  failure  ''  from  the 
grass  roots." 

Some  forms  of  punishment  may  be  effective  in  developing 
good  conduct,  during  his  stay  in  prison  at  least,  in  the  least 
promising  of  criminals.  Even  in  the  insane,  and  among  epilep- 
tics, who  are  given  to  fits  of  violence,  the  fear  of  loss  of  privileges 
through  incurring  managerial  displeasure  often  serves  as  a  check 
on  evil  propensities. 

The  doctrine  of  punishment  as  a  specific  for  the  cure  of  crime 
being  wrong  in  theory,  and,  in  general,  a  failure  in  practice,  so 
far  as  making  any  perceptible  impression  on  the  sum  total  of 
crime  is  concerned,  and  especially  so  as  regards  preventing  its 
increase,  it  is  obvious  that  remedies  for  crime  must  be  based 
upon  principles  much  broader  than  those  of  the  punitive  theory. 
The  only  working  theory  of  criminality  that  is  likely  ever  to  be 
effective  in  reducing  the  proportion  of  crime  in  any  given  social 
system  is  based  upon  the  fundamental  propositions  already  ad- 
vanced, which  are  in  resume, — 


THERAPEUTICS   OF   SOCIAL   DISEASE        599 

1.  That  the  typic  criminal  class  is  composed  of  beings  who 
are  abnormal,  physically,  intellectually,  and  morally. 

2.  That  these  antisocial  beings  are  the  dregs  of  our  social 
system. 

3.  That  they  contaminate  and  endanger  the  integrity  of 
society. 

4.  That  most  of  these  vicious  elements  can  be  prevented  from 
forming  by  proper  supervision  and  treatment  of  juveniles  and, 
when  the  world  becomes  alive  to  its  best  interests,  by  human 
stirpiculture  and  the  judicious  application  of  sterilization. 

5.  That  a  large  proportion  of  juvenile  and  at  least  a  minority 
of  adult  antisocial  beings  can  be  redeemed  by  intelligent  curative 
methods. 

6.  That  society's  first  duty  is  not  revenge,  but  self-defence. 
Its  next  duty  is  to  make  the  criminal,  where  possible,  a  healthy 
and  useful  atom  of  the  body  social. 

7.  That  the  incurable,  irredeemable  criminal  must  be  elimi- 
nated absolutely  and  permanently  from  society. 

8.  That  the  true  function  of  courts  and  prisons  is  to  protect 
society  and  cure  or  reclaim  criminals,  not  to  arbitrarily  and 
routinely  punish  crime. 

9.  That  the  prescription  and  administration  of  punishment 
and  reformation  should  be  selective  and  individual,  and  under 
the  direction  of  wise  and  experienced  men  of  broad  information 
and  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  physical  aspect  of  crime  and  of 
the  principles  of  sociology. 

CAPITAL   PUNISHMENT 

It  is  by  no  means  to  the  credit  of  civilization  that  so  gruesome 
a  relic  of  barbarous  times  as  the  gallows  should  still  exist.  Still 
less  creditable  is  the  invention  of  an  equally  barbarous  instrument 
of  social  revenge,  the  electrocution  chair,  representing  the  appli- 
cation of  a  greatly  increased  intelligence  to  the  perpetuation  of  a 
horrible  custom  which  is  unworthy  of  the  age. 

Social  revenge  is  very  much  out  of  date.  Murderous  indi- 
vidual revenge,  with  which  it  is  but  natural  to  sympathize,  was 
legislated  out  of  court  long  ago,  as  a  matter  of  social  oxpedi- 


6oo  THE    DISEASES    OF   SOCIETY 

eiicy.  It  is  time  that  collective  or  social  revenge  suffered  the 
same  fate. 

Lynching  will  never  be  done  away  with  until  its  parent, 
capital  punishment,  has  been  abolished.  The  suggestion  of 
social  revenge  by  torture  and  taking  human  life  laid  down  in 
holy  writ  is  kept  constantly  in  operation  by  legal  barbarity. 
Capital  punishment  is  one  of  the  chief  factors  that  keep  the 
tiger  in  .humanity's  breast  from  being  effectually  lulled  to  sleep 
by  social  progress.    That  tiger  loves  blood  to-day  as  well  as  ever. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  a  severe  penalty  of  some  kind  is 
necessary  to  check  the  murderous  propensities  that  are  latent  in 
man,  but  this  in  no  way  establishes  the  necessity  for  capital  pun- 
ishment. Statistics  fail  to  show  that  capital  punishment  per  se 
is  deterrent  of  murder.  The  crime  of  murder  is  usually  com- 
mitted under  stress  of  great  emotional  excitement,  or  by  indi- 
viduals who  have  carefully  estimated  their  chances  of  detection 
and  punishment.  In  neither  class  of  murderers  does  capital 
punishment  operate  as  a  check.  The  criminal  murderer  rarely 
kills  unless  compelled  to  do  so,  and  when,  in  the  exigencies  of  his 
profession,  the  necessity  of  killing  arises,  he  is  not  likely  just  then 
to  take  the  severity  of  the  penalty  of  murder  into  consideration. 
He  has  long  ago  assigned  capital  punishment  its  proper  place  in 
his  estimate  of  the  chances  that  he  takes  in  his  business.  As 
criminal  law  is  at  present  administered,  the  risk  of  capital  punish- 
ment taken  by  the  professional  criminal  who  murders  is  small 
indeed. 

The  murder  statistics  of  those  social  systems  in  which  capital 
punishment  has  been  abolished  compare  so  favorably  with  those 
in  which  it  still  exists  that  no  further  argument  should  be  neces- 
sary to  prove  its  uselessness.  The  records  of  Kansas  and  Michi- 
gan speak  for  themselves.  History  shows  that  in  times  past, 
when  capital  punishment  was  inflicted  for  even  slight  offences, 
it  not  only  was  not  deterrent  of  crime,  but  increased  it  by  brutal- 
izing the  people.  The  eclat  of  public  executions  offered  to  the 
vain-glorious  criminal  a  suggestion  of  the  means  whereby  he, 
too,  might  occupy  for  one  brief  moment  the  centre  of  the  stage 
of  life. 


THERAPEUTICS    OF   SOCIAL   DISEASE        6oi 

The  non-deterrent  effect  of  capital  punishment  is  shown  by 
the  fact  that  when  picking  pockets  was  a  capital  offence  the  Ught- 
fingered  gentry  were  wont  to  ply  their  trade  among  the  onlookers 
at  public  executions. 

The  most  illogical  feature  of  capital  punishment  is  the  fact 
that  it  does  not  punish.  Punishment  requires  memory ;  memory 
demands  intelligent  life.  Memory,  and  therefore  punishment, 
ceases  when  life  departs.  It  is  about  as  effective  to  hang  a 
mentally  sound  man  as  it  would  be  to  hang  an  idiot,  so  far  as 
punishment  goes,  and,  moreover,  the  one  would  be  as  impressive 
an  example  as  the  other. 

By  far  the  best  criticism  of  capital  punishment  I  have  ever 
read  was  fathered  by  my  friend,  Mr.  Opie  Read.^^  An  old 
darkey,  in  describing  an  execution,  said,  "  Dey  done  led  dat  man 
up  on  a  flatform,  jes'  like  he  wuz  some  pore  ole  dog,  dat  dey 
gwine  ter  kill.  An'  de  sheriff  done  read  a  great  long  paper  ter 
dat  man.  Now,  Marse  John,  what  did  dey  read  dat  paper  ter 
dat  man  for,  when  dey  gwine  ter  kill  him?  Why,  he  won't 
know  nuffin'  'bout  dat  ter-morrer." 

Here  was  the  light  of  a  simple-minded  philosophy  thrown 
on  a  dark  subject.  That  poor  old  negro,  like  some  children,  was 
more  philosophic  than  his  betters. 

Perhaps  the  most  serious  objection  to  capital  punishment  is 
the  necessity  of  executioners.  How  can  society  reconcile  itself 
to  a  method  of  punishment  which  demands  that  one  or  more  men 
should  deliberately  murder  another  in  order  to  revenge  society 
for  murder  committed  by  that  other?  Judicial  murder  is  the 
worst  and  least  excusable  form  of  murder,  because  it  is  both 
deliberate  and  avoidable.  The  unjust  forfeiture  of  a  life  is  a 
crime  against  society,  but  the  so-called  just  forfeiture  of  a  life  is 
a  crime  against  humanity. 

One  of  the  most  horrible  features  of  capital  punishment  is 
the  danger  of  executing  innocent  persons.  This  is  almost  as 
likely  to  occur  in  legal  executions  as  in  lynchings.  If  it  be  proved 
that  a  single  innocent  man  was  ever  hanged  by  legal  or  illegal 


"  An  Arkansaw  Hanging. 


6o2  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

process,  the  custom  is  everlastingly  damned.  Does  any  one  argue 
that  innocent  persons  have  not  been  executed?  Shall  we  be 
governed  by  the  principle  that  it  is  better  to  hang  ten  innocent 
men  than  to  allow  a  single  guilty  one  to  escape?  Personally,  I 
hold  the  view  that  it  were  better  to  allow  ten  thousand  guilty  ones 
to  go  scot  free,  than  to  destroy  the  life  of  a  single  innocent  per- 
son. Victor  Hugo  has  vividly  depicted  the  sufferings  of  the 
man  who  waits  for  the  consummation  of  his  own  judicial  mur- 
der.^^  How  much  more  poignant  the  anguish  of  the  innocent 
than  of  the  guilty  ? 

Perjured  witnesses  in  murder  trials  are  not  a  thing  unknown 
to  criminal  jurisprudence.  Human  nature  has  not  changed  since, 
in  England,  in  1749,  Faircloth  and  Loveday  were  sentenced  to 
death  on  the  testimony  of  a  perjurer.  Faircloth  was  hanged, 
and  Loveday  was  about  to  suffer  the  same  fate  when  evidence 
was  brought  to  light  that  proved  the  innocence  of  both  men. 

Circumstantial  evidence  has  hanged  many  an  innocent  man. 
Errors  in  identification  must  also  assume  a  share  of  responsi- 
bility. The  evidence  of  witnesses  of  murder,  who  were  probably 
frightened  and  excited  at  the  time  the  deed  was  committed,  is  not 
always  to  be  weighed  in  the  balance  against  a  human  life. 

The  occasional  barbarity  of  executions  is  alone  sufficient  to 
condemn  capital  punishment.  At  an  execution  in  St.  Louis  the 
rope  broke,  and  it  took  the  executioners  forty  minutes  to  get 
the  old  noose  off  and  a  new  one  on.  Having  adjusted  the 
fresh  noose,  they  strung  their  victim  up  again.  Christopher 
Merry,  the  Chicago  wife-murderer,  was  slowly  strangled  to 
death.  Thirteen  minutes  were  consumed  in  the  process.  The 
amount  of  bungling  that  has  been  done  in  electrocution  is  horri- 
fying, although  but  a  small  part  of  it  has  ever  been  made  public. 

The  last  vestige  of  a  claim  for  recognition  for  capital  punish- 
ment should  be  swept  away  by  the  inequality  of  its  application. 
If  it  exists  in  one  State,  it  should  exist  in  all.  If  one  convicted 
murderer  is  hanged,  then  all  should  be.  What  do  the  records 
show?    Briefly  this,  that  there  is  a  discrimination  which  selects 

"  Last  Three  Days  of  the  Condemned. 


THERAPEUTICS    OF    SOCIAL    DISEASE        603 

as  the  victims  of  legalized  murder  from  two  to  three  per  cent. — 
varying  in  different  years — of  the  total  number  of  murderers. 
The  most  recent  annual  statistics  show  in  round  numbers  about 
three  hundred  executions,  legal  and  illegal,  as  against  nearly 
eleven  thousand  murders  in  the  United  States,  In  1895  the  pro- 
portion of  executions  was  not  much  more  than  two  per  cent.  It 
is  interesting  to  note  that  there  has  been  a  progressive  increase 
of  murders  in  this  country  of  late  years,  a  record  by  no  means 
complimentary,  in  view  of  London's  showing  of  only  twenty- 
four  murders  for  1902,  and,  I  believe,  eleven  during  the  past 
year." 

Capital  punishment  is  a  system  from  which  there  is  no  appeal. 
No  court  is  wise  enough  to  correct  its  own  errors,  once  its  victim 
is  executed.  This  is  one  of  the  most  powerful  arguments  against 
it.  There  should  be  no  system  of  punishment  the  mistakes  of 
which  cannot  be  rectified. 

The  records  of  capital  punishment  in  this  country  are  not 
flattering  to  civilization.  One  of  the  swiftest,  surest,  most  inex- 
orable and  merciless  courts  on  earth  was  the  old  Federal  Court 
at  Fort  Smith,  Arkansas.  For  many  years  there  was  no  appeal 
from  its  decisions.  One  executioner  alone  hanged  eighty-eight 
men.  This  court  was  the  arbiter  of  criminal  destinies  for  a  num- 
ber of  adjacent  territories  for  over  twenty-five  years.  The  Creek 
nation — where  capital  punishment  was  prescribed  for  compara- 
tively trivial  offences  oftener  than  in  any  other  part  of  this  coun- 
try— furnished  more  victims  for  the  gibbet  than  all  the  other 
districts  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Fort  Smith  court. ^^ 

The  executioner  represents  an  entire  people  who,  supported 
by  the  majesty  of  the  law,  have  united  to  wreak  the  revenge  of 
society  upon  one  poor  devil  who  represents,  on  the  one  hand, 
the  foibles  of  human  nature, — which  are  no  worse  in  him  than  in 
many  of  those  around  him, — and,  on  the  other,  the  errors  of  our 
social  system.    On  the  ground  of  public  policy,  I  presume  it  will 


"  Police    Systems    of    Europe,    A.    D.    Andrews,    the    Cosnioiiolitaii, 
March,  1903. 

"  Harmon,  op.  cit. 


6o4  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

be  argued  that  the  consciences  of  judge,  jury,  and  executioner 
should  be  clear.  Unfortunately,  however,  this  is  not  always  the 
case.  A  certain  judge,  who  presided  over  a  frontier  Federal 
Court  for  many  years,  sentenced  one  hundred  and  sixty-eight 
murderers  to  death.  Considering  the  atrocious  criminals  with 
whom  he  had  to  deal,  and  the  semi-savagery  of  their  envi- 
ronment, one  might  naturally  suppose  that  his  conscience  re- 
mained clear,  yet  he  finally  became  an  advocate  of  the  abolition 
of  capital  punishment.  On  his  death-bed  he  cast  an  anchor  to 
windward  and  cried,  "  /  never  hanged  a  man.    It  was  the  law!" 

The  inequalities  of  justice  were  well  shown  in  this  judge's 
own  court.  During  twenty-five  years  less  than  ninety  mur- 
derers were  hanged,  while  during  a  period  of  only  ten  years  of 
that  time  three  hundred  and  five  were  convicted  of  murder,  and 
one  hundred  and  sixty-eight  were  sentenced  to  death. 

As  the  law  now  stands,  capital  punishment  involves  the  dan- 
ger of  executing  the  insane.  History  teems  with  proofs  of  this. 
To  be  sure,  if  society  must  destroy  life,  it  would  be  far  more 
logical  and  altruistic  to  destroy  the  insane  than  to  hang  the  sane 
murderer ;  the  former  is  by  far  the  more  dangerous ;  but  as 
matters  stand  at  present,  the  danger  of  the  execution  of  the 
insane  is  a  powerful  argument  against  the  system.  It  will  con- 
tinue to  be  an  argument  against  it  so  long  as  there  is  no  arbitrary 
standard  of  sanity.  The  social-defense-necessity  plea  for  capital 
punishment  will  not  hold  water.  Experience  has  shown  that  the 
life  sentence  is  equally  effective  as  a  deterrent  of  murder.  When 
rigidly  administered,  it  is  certainly  effective  in  social  protection. 

If  capital  punishment  be  not  abolished,  the  least  that  a 
humane  spirit  should  demand  is  that  the  methods  of  capital 
punishment  should  be  devoid  of  barbarity.  So  long  as  chloro- 
form, opium,  prussic  acid,  and  carbonic  monoxide  are  pro- 
curable, just  so  long  will  the  gallows-tree  and  electric  chair  be 
indefensible. 

THE    INDETERMINATE    SENTENCE 

One  of  the  most  important  steps  in  the  advancement  of  crimi- 
nology has  been  the  suggestion  and  occasional  adoption  of  the 
indeterminate  sentence.    This  implies  the  simple  commitment  of 


THERAPEUTICS    OF    SOCIAL    DISEASE        605 

the  criminal  to  an  institution  where  he  can  be  individually  studied 
and  treated  in  the  manner  that  best  subserves  the  purpose  of 
making  him  a  useful,  honest,  and  self-supporting  citizen.  His 
term  of  imprisonment  is  not  fixed  by  the  court,  but  is  determined 
by  the  intrinsic  susceptibility  to  reformation  of  the  individual 
criminal, — i.e.,  it  lasts  until  such  time  as  the  prison  authorities 
are  convinced  that  reformation  has  been  accomplished.  He  is 
then  liberated  on  parole,  but  is  still  kept  under  surveillance,  until 
the  authorities  are  certain  that  reformation  is  complete.  For 
those  who  are  insusceptible  of  reform,  commitment  to  prison 
means  permanent  removal  from  the  social  system.  The  basic 
principle  of  the  indeterminate  sentence  is  obviously  the  treatment 
of  the  criminal,  rather  than  the  punishment  of  his  crime,  which 
treatment  involves  a  most  careful  analysis  of  his  mental,  moral, 
and  physical  status,  and  the  correction,  so  far  as  possible,  of  his 
defects. 

A  logical  system  of  criminal  management  and  reform  must  of 
necessity  revolve  around  the  indeterminate  sentence.  The  preva- 
lent method  of  prescribing  an  arbitrarily  measured  dose  of  pun- 
ishment for  a  certain  grade  of  crime  is  intrinsically  absurd. 
Sentencing  a  criminal  to  confinement  for  a  stated  number  of 
years  as  a  penalty  for  a  given  criminal  offence  is  about  as  sen- 
sible as  would  be  the  prescription  of  a  certain  number  of  weeks 
in  hospital  for  a  case  of  contagious  disease.  It  is  primarily 
admitted  that  the  parallelism  between  crime  and  disease  is  not 
exact  at  all  points,  still  the  comparison  is  logical.  It  is  also 
admitted  that  the  indeterminate  sentence  is  more  logical  in  its 
application  to  the  relatively  curable  juvenile  delinquents  than  to 
the  relatively  incurable  adults,  but,  as  its  application  to  the  former 
is  bound  to  reduce  the  proportion  of  the  latter  in  any  given 
community,  its  usefulness  is  by  no  means  lessened  by  the  dif- 
ference in  tractability  of  juveniles  and  adults. 

The  objection  has  been  urged  that  the  indeterminate  sentence 
is  likely  to  result  in  inequalities  of  punishment  and  a  general 
laxity  of  enforcement  of  law  which  would  cause  the  unwar- 
ranted detention  of  some  individuals  and  the  premature  release 
of  others.    This  objection  has  no  support  save  the  fallibility  of 


6o6  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

human  judgment,  instability  of  human  morals,  and  venality  of 
politics,  which  are  liable  to  influence  to  a  certain  degree  all  of  the 
affairs  of  life  that  bear  directly  upon  public  interests.  Care  in 
the  selection  of  prison  officials,  and  the  divorce  of  prison  man- 
agement from  partisanry  and  politics  will  do  away  with  most  of 
these  sources  of  danger. 

Admitting,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  the  force  of  the  objec- 
tions advanced,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  the  same  defects  exist 
and  operate  with  a  hundred-fold  greater  power  under  the  present 
regime  than  they  could  possibly  do  under  the  indeterminate  sen- 
tence system.  We  will  take  for  illustration  the  variation  in  the 
statutes  of  the  different  States.  In  one  a  life  sentence  is  imposed 
for  a  crime  which  in  another  State  is  punished  by  a  few  years' 
imprisonment.  In  the  same  jurisdiction  one  man  may  be  sen- 
tenced to  ten  years  and  another  to  three  months  in  jail  for  the 
same  crime.  Oftentimes  the  most  confirmed  criminal  gets  the 
shortest  sentence.  In  several  States  murder  is  punishable  by  life 
imprisonment,  while  in  the  majority  the  death  penalty  is  pre- 
scribed. 

Bribery  and  politics  at  present  follow  the  criminal  through- 
out his  penal  career.  Money  and  political  influence  cut  the 
time  and  soften  the  asperities  of  punishment  to  a  degree.  "  Pull" 
and  money  begin  their  operation  with  the  first  grasp  of  the 
policeman's  hand  upon  the  criminal's  collar,  and  sometimes 
arrive  at  their  maximum  of  potency  in  the  sanctum  of  his 
Excellency,  the  governor. 

One  of  the  great  advantages  of  the  indeterminate  sentence 
is  the  moral  effect  upon  the  criminal  of  the  knowledge  that  he 
must  either  permanently  reform  or  be  immured  for  the  rest  of 
his  natural  life.  He  soon  comes  to  realize  that  society  will  no 
longer  tolerate  him  at  the  price  of  a  certain  amount  of  time 
spent  in  jail  from  time  to  time,  but  demands  that  he  either  prove 
his  worthiness  to  be  at  large,  or  remain  permanently  in  prison. 

It  must  be  confessed  that,  in  the  first  flush  of  enthusiasm  over 
the  indeterminate  sentence,  some  of  its  glaring  defects  as  a 
routine  measure  have  been  overlooked. 

The  indeterminate  sentence,  if  routinely  applied,  would  en- 


THERAPEUTICS    OF    SOCIAL   DISEASE        607 

courage  certain  classes  of  crime.  Swindlers,  defaulters,  and 
embezzlers  of  large  amounts  of  money — men  of  intelligence  and 
good  physical  constitution  in  many  cases — would  have  no  diffi- 
culty in  proving  a  speedy  cure  and  securing  their  liberty,  which 
is  so  important  to  them  in  the  disposition  and  enjoyment  of  their 
ill-gotten  gains.  Never  having  belonged  to  the  typic  criminal 
class,  such  offenders  would  have  no  difficulty  in  proving  the 
safety  of  replacing  them  in  society.  Whether  they  should  ever 
fall  again  or  not,  their  example  would  be  demoralizing  to  others, 
who  could  see  only  a  light  penalty  as  the  price  of  a  splendid 
financial  coup. 

The  murderer  rarely  belongs  to  the  criminal  class.  In  most 
instances  he  is  the  offender  whom  it  is  safest  to  allow  to  run  at 
large.  Seldom  would  he,  even  if  set  at  liberty,  commit  another 
murder.  Remorse  and  the  improbability  of  the  recurrence  of  the 
circumstances  that  led  to  the  murder  are  a  safeguard  for  society. 
If,  however,  the  murderer  receives  an  indeterminate  sentence, 
during  which  he  can  readily  prove  his  moral  fitness  to  enter 
society,  and  at  the  end  of  which  he  is  liberated,  others  will  be 
encouraged  to  dispense  unsought-for  favors  to  their  enemies,  in 
the  surety  of  an  indeterminate  sentence,  which  shall  speedily 
terminate  in  a  "  cure."  Surely,  therefore,  the  indeterminate  sen- 
tence cannot  safely  be  applied  to  the  crime  of  murder. 

It  is  evident  that  if  the  indeterminate  sentence  is  to  prevail, 
every  possible  precaution  should  be  taken  to  conserve  its  in- 
tegrity and  usefulness.  Above  all,  it  must  not  be  routine  and 
general  in  its  application,  but  should  be  wisely  and  intelligently 
dispensed.  Its  application  must,  of  necessity,  be  restricted  chiefly 
to  the  juvenile  offender,  and  to  those  among  adults  who  belong 
to  the  distinctively  criminal  class.  The  greatest  discretion  should 
be  exercised  in  its  application  to  occasional  criminals.  There  are 
those  whose  weaknesses,  or  exposure  to  vicious  influences,  tempt 
to  social  offences  for  which  they  should  not  be  punished,  because 
of  the  possibility  of  confirming  them  in  a  life  of  crime.  A  warn- 
ing and  a  reprimand  are  alone  necessary  here.  There  are  otlier 
instances  in  which,  although  the  individual  is  in  no  sense  a  crim- 
inal, and  in  all  probability  would  never  again  commit  crime,  an 


6o8  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

example  is  absolutely  necessary  for  the  discouragement  of  similar 
acts  by  others.  As  our  penal  system  is  now  conducted,  a  petty 
thief  is  likely  to  receive  a  long  jail  sentence,  while  the  wrecker  of 
a  bank  is  either  allowed  to  go  scot  free,  or  is  sentenced  to  a  term 
so  short  as  to  put  a  premium  on  huge  swindles  by  reducing  to  a 
minimum  the  business  risks  of  shady  financiering.  If  punish- 
ment has  any  legitimate  field  for  its  application,  it  is  in  the  case 
of  the  educated,  refined,  and  intelligent  individual  who  conducts 
colossal  swindling  enterprises.  Even  here  the  true  function  of 
confinement  is  the  protection  of  society  by  deterring  others, 
rather  than  by  the  affliction  of  the  guilty  man. 

After  discounting  all  the  possible  sources  of  fallacy,  it  is  ob- 
vious that  the  indeterminate  sentence  is  the  key-stone  of  the  arch 
of  criminal  reform. 

REFORMATION 

What  I  have  to  say  specifically  upon  the  subject  of  reforma- 
tion will  be  brief.  Much  of  reformatory  methods  has  already 
been  covered,  especially  as  regards  the  relation  of  physical  train- 
ing to  reformation.  I  will,  however,  take  occasion  to  reiterate 
my  belief  that  success  in  reformation  is  determined  mainly  by 
the  degree  of  success  attained  in  physical  training, — the  physical 
life  being  the  natural  foundation  of  the  moral  and  intellectual  life. 
As  the  physical  aspect  of  the  crime  question  becomes  more 
thoroughly  understood,  physical  training  as  a  basis  for  the  thera- 
peutics of  crime  will  be  increasingly  appreciated  and  more  gen- 
erally applied. 

Practical  men  of  affairs  who  come  in  daily  contact  with  crimi- 
nals are,  as  a  rule,  pessimistic  on  the  question  of  criminal  reform. 
The  exceptions  are  the  philosophic  criminologists  who  have  had 
opportunity  to  observe  the  effects  of  the  application  of  modern 
ideas  to  the  treatment,  not  of  crime,  but  of  criminals.  The  aver- 
age prison  not  only  does  not  reform,  but  is  merely  a  school  of 
crime,  in  which  the  human  brute  is  made  more  brutish  and  his 
criminal  tendencies  more  permanent.  The  average  reformatory, 
especially,  is  a  failure.  Even  up-to-date  reformatories  are  not 
popular  with  the  police.  Captain  Evans,  of  the  Chicago  Bureau 
of  Identification,  in  a  recent  interview  with  the  writer  said: 


THERAPEUTICS    OF    SOCIAL    DISEASE        609 

"  The  most  troublesome  criminals  we  have  are  the  graduates  of  the 
Pontiac  Reformatory.  We  arrested  forty  of  them  for  crime  in  a  single 
month  last  year.  Our  experience  goes  to  show  that  the  average  re- 
formatory is  a  signal  failure." 

In  1902  there  were  in  all  two  hundred  and  fifty-one  reforma- 
tory graduates  brought  to  book  for  crime  in  Chicago.  The 
Annual  Report  of  the  Department  of  Police  says: 

"  The  Pontiac  graduates  are  undoubtedly  the  most  desperate  crimi- 
nals that  this  Department  has  to  contend  with.  They  work  in  gangs 
of  from  four  to  seven,  and  when  stopped  and  questioned  by  an  officer, 
they  invariably  shoot,  wound,  or  kill  him,  as  the  number  of  our  officers 
killed  and  injured  during  the  past  year  will  show.  The  odds  of  from 
four  or  seven  to  one  are  too  great,  and  give  the  officer  very  little  chance 
to  defend  himself.  Most  of  the  desperate  crimes  occurring  in  this  city 
are  committed  by  these  men;  they  place  slight  value  on  human  life. 
One  of  the  bad  features  in  connection  with  these  criminals  is  that  we 
are  rarely  able  to  get  any  information  concerning  them  from  the  authori- 
ties at  Pontiac.  All  that  we  can  learn  is  that  '  said  person  was  arrested, 
tried,  and  sentenced  to  the  Reformatory;'  nothing  more,  until  he  is 
again  arrested  here,  or  in  some  other  city,  for  some  criminal  offence." 

The  failure  of  reformatories  to  reform  by  no  means  proves 
the  impossibility  of  reform,  but  merely  condemns  the  methods 
employed.  That  the  method  is  at  fault  is  shown  by  the  experience 
of  certain  modern  reformatories  conducted  along  rational  and 
scientific  lines,  such  as  the  Elmira  Reformatory — the  parent  of 
the  humane  and  philosophic  idea — and  the  Massachusetts  Re- 
formatory at  Concord.  In  the  case  of  Pontiac,  the  trouble  lies  in 
the  fact  that  hardened  adult  offenders  are  sent  there  contrary  to 
the  provisions  of  the  law  supposed  to  govern  the  commitments. 

The  Elmira  Reformatory  may  be  taken  as  the  type  of  insti- 
tution that  most  nearly  accords  with  advanced  criminologic  ideas. 
The  system  here  employed  is,  in  epitome,  as  follows : 

The  prisoner  is  committed  under  an  indeterminate  sentence. 
When  he  enters  the  reformatory  a  careful  examination  is  at  once 
made  as  to  his  ancestry,  previous  environment,  physical  and 
mental  status,  and  his  aptitude  for  different  lines  of  employment. 
Should  he  have  ambitions  in  any  particular  direction,  these  are 
carefully  noted. 

39 


6io  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

The  prisoners  are  graded,  the  grades  being  styled  lower  first, 
upper  first,  and  second.  The  first,  or  upper,  grade  is  the  gradu- 
ating grade.  The  cells  in  this  grade  are  commodious,  with 
spring  beds,  and  the  prisoners  eat  at  large  dining-tables.  From 
this  grade  are  chosen  officers  for  the  prison  regiment,  monitors 
for  the  shops,  and  turnkeys  for  the  cell  blocks.  If  the  prisoner's 
record  in  this  grade  is  good  for  six  months,  he  is  given  his 
release  on  parole,  subject  to  the  vote  of  the  managers  and  the 
procurement  of  satisfactory  employment. 

Incoming  prisoners  are  assigned  to  the  lower  first,  or  middle 
grade,  in  which  privileges  are  scant,  and  they  take  their  meals  in 
their  cells.  A  good  record  for  six  months  secures  promotion  to 
the  upper  first  grade ;  a  bad  record  is  punished  by  transference 
to  the  second,  or  lowest,  grade.  All  credit  marks  are  now  for- 
feited, and  three  months'  good  marking  is  required  before  the 
middle  grade  can  again  be  attained.  The  prisoner  who  falls  a 
second  time  must  earn  promotion  by  six  months'  good  conduct. 
Should  he  fall  a  third  time,  satisfactory  showing  for  one  year  is 
required. 

The  training  at  Elmira  is  based  upon  the  idea  of  the  physical 
basis  6f  criminality.  Attention  is  first  given  to  physical  develop- 
ment and  hygiene.  Military  drill  and  gymnastics,  and  in  selected 
cases  hydrotherapy  and  massage,  are  employed.  The  education 
of  the  prisoner  proceeds  along  a  combination  of  moral,  indus- 
trial, and  intellectual  lines.  A  wage-earning  plan  has  been 
adopted,  the  wages  in  the  three  grades  being  respectively  thirty- 
five,  forty-five,  and  fifty-five  cents  per  day.  Money  fines  for  poor 
records  and  misconduct  are  an  appendage  of  this  wage  system. 

The  records  of  Elmira  are  most  convincing  and  optimistic. 
It  is  estimated  that  reformation  occurs  in  over  eighty  per  cent,  of 
the  prisoners.  The  percentage  of  recommitments  is  small,  being 
less  than  ten  per  cent.  Less  than  sixteen  per  cent,  are  reported 
as  dropping  back  into  crime. 

Release  from  the  reformatory  is  conditional.  Employment 
must  first  be  obtained  by  the  prisoner  or  provided  for  him. 
Having  entered  upon  the  duties  of  his  employment,  he  must 
forward  every  month  a  report  of  his  habits,  conduct,  earnings, 


THERAPEUTICS   OF   SOCIAL   DISEASE       6ii 

expenditures,  and  savings,  signed  by  his  employer.  If  his  reports 
are  satisfactory  for  six  months  or  more,  he  is  given  a  permanent 
release, — as  effective  as  a  governor's  pardon, — at  the  discretion 
of  the  Board  of  Managers  of  the  Reformatory. 

A  reaction  against  the  parole  system  is  beginning  in  Illinois. 
The  parole  graduates  of  our  State  reformatories  have  given  the 
police  so  much  trouble  that  this  is  not  surprising.  The  fault, 
however,  lies  not  with  the  parole  system,  but  with  the  reforma- 
tory itself,  and  the  lack  of  careful  supervision  after  the  prisoner 
is  discharged.  The  safety  and  effectiveness  of  the  parole  system 
must  of  necessity  be  determined  by  the  degree  of  success  obtained 
by  the  reformatory  system  to  which  the  paroled  individual  has 
been  subjected  prior  to  his  liberation. 

The  most  essential  feature  of  prison  reform  is  the  appoint- 
ment of  proper  officers.  The  responsibility  of  reformation 
should  be  divided  between  the  warden,  chaplain,  and  physician. 
Men  of  the  broadest  experience  and  most  liberal  education  only 
should  be  selected  for  these  positions.  The  man  who  knows 
nothing  of  sociology,  and  especially  of  criminal  sociology,  has  no 
place  in  the  management  of  criminals. 

The  physician,  especially,  should  be  a  man  of  the  highest 
attainments.  At  present,  the  prison  physician  is  usually  a  recent 
graduate,  appointed  through  political  favor,  whose  object  is 
saving  enough  out  of  his  meagre  salary  to  give  him  a  start  in 
private  practice.  The  prison  physician  should  be  well  versed  in 
sociology  and  a  master  of  his  profession,  especially  in  the  depart- 
ments of  psychology,  hygiene,  physical  training,  and  sanitary 
science.  He  should  be  well  paid,  and  given  assistants  sufficient  to 
enable  him  to  do  thorough  scientific  work.  The  prison  physician, 
appointed  on  the  lines  suggested,  may  one  day  prove  to  be  the 
Moses  who  shall  lead  humanity  out  of  the  wilderness  of  crime. 

The  prison  library  is  an  invaluable  instrument  in  the  reform 
of  the  criminal.  Properly  selected  books  for  private  reading, 
with  public  reading-classes  as  an  adjuvant,  should  be  assigned 
an  important  place  among  the  educational  features  of  prisons  and 
reformatories.  The  book  with  a  moral  has  its  place  in  the  prison 
library,  but  should  be  doled  out  to  the  convict  in  very  moderate 


6i2  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

doses.  Books  that  assist  in  the  development  of  ideation  should 
be  selected  as  the  foundation  of  the  reading  course.  The  book 
that  has  merely  a  moral  to  adorn  a  tale  falls  upon  infertile  soil 
in  most  cases.  The  seeds  of  morality  thrive  best  where  a  more 
or  less  intelligent  altruism  has  been  developed  along  purely  in- 
tellectual lines.  To  preach  to  subjects  who  have  no  intellectual 
development  is,  in  prisons,  as  rational  as  whistling  to  stop  the 
wind  from  blowing. 

The  prison  chaplain  is  obviously  an  important  official  in  a 
prison,  but  his  value  as  an  expounder  of  morals  is  likely  to  be 
inversely  to  his  obtrusiveness  as  a  preacher.  The  less  orthodox 
he  is,  the  better  for  his  success  in  brain  building  in  criminals. 
His  religion  must  be  broad  and  humane,  and  he  must  thoroughly 
appreciate  the  physical  obstacles  that  the  criminal  organism 
presents  to  his  labors  as  a  reformer. 

It  is,  of  course,  admitted  that  sincere  religious  conversions 
do  occur  among  convicts,  but  they  are  so  exceptional  that  little 
impression  is  thereby  made  upon  the  sum  total  of  crime.  I  would 
in  no  sense  decry  attempts  to  pluck  brands  from  the  burning,  but 
I  think  that  the  function  of  the  prison  chaplain  should  be  largely 
that  of  a  teacher  of  such  things  as  shall  increase  cerebral  growth. 
His  function  as  a  moral  instructor  should  be  made  secondary  to 
this.  Ethics,  so  far  as  possible,  should  be  taught  simultaneously 
with  the  physical  and  intellectual  training.  In  direct  proportion 
as  training  in  the  latter  directions  is  a  success,  the  more  effective 
moral  instruction  is  likely  to  be. 

The  ideas  advanced  by  modern  criminologic  science  must  in 
practice  remain  largely  Utopian  until  prison  management  is  freed 
from  politics.  It  is  impossible  to  obtain  good  men  for  prison 
positions  so  long  as  the  tenure  of  office  is  so  insecure  as  it  is  at 
present.  The  people  will  one  day  rise  in  their  majesty  and  say 
to  the  politician,  who  would  fain  use  our  public  institutions  as 
spoils  of  office,  "  Hands  oflF !"  Until  then  we  have  many  difficul- 
ties to  overcome,  and  many  unwilling  converts  to  make  among 
the  public  at  large. 

The  classification  of  criminals,  so  far  as  practicable,  as  a  pre- 
liminary to  reform,  is  of  vital  importance.    It  will  probably  never 


THERAPEUTICS   OF   SOCIAL   DISEASE        613 

be  practicable  to  classify  criminals  in  any  but  the  most  general 
way.  Refinements  of  classification  are  impossible,  for  obvious 
reasons,  chief  among  which  are  the  wide  variations  of  criminal 
psychology  and  education.  Much,  however,  can  be  done  in  this 
direction.  First  offenders  should  exceptionally  be  sent  to  prison  ; 
this  with  due  regard  to  the  necessity  of  making  an  example  of 
those  who  commit  certain  aggravated  forms  of  crime.  In  most 
instances  among  juvenile  first  offenders  a  reprimand  and  warn- 
ing, associated  with  wholesome  counsel  and  wise  advice,  is  all 
that  is  necessary.  In  some  cases  the  subject  should  merely  be 
kept  under  police  surveillance  and  made  to  understand  that  he  is 
so  kept.  In  a  minority  of  cases  the  offence  is  sufficient  to  stamp 
the  subject  as  distinctively  criminal  timber,  and  the  reformatory 
should  be  prescribed. 

Juveniles  should  never  be  placed  with  adult  criminals,  but  it 
must  be  remembered  that  certain  juveniles  are  very  precocious 
and  quite  hardened  in  crime.  These  should  be  isolated,  or  segre- 
gated, and  not  allowed  to  contaminate  hopeful  cases.  Occasional 
adult  criminals  should  not,  as  a  rule,  be  congregated  with 
habituals.  In  many  instances  occasional  criminals  can  be  made 
very  useful  as  instructors.  Where  their  moral  status  is  not  such 
as  to  argue  against  it,  educated  occasional  should  be  so  em- 
ployed. 

Types  of  adult  criminals  that  experience  has  proved  to  be 
refractory,  such  as  forgers,  horse-thieves,  and  pick-pockets, 
should  rarely  be  allowed  to  associate  with  ordinary  thieves  and 
malefactors.  Experience  shows  that  the  former  classes  are 
almost  impossible  of  reform. 

Experience  has  shown  that  the  tough  boy  is  more  suscep- 
tible of  reform  than  the  sneak.  In  the  one  there  is  often  good 
material  gone  wrong,  while  in  the  other  there  is  neither 
moral  nor  physical  stamina  as  a  foundation  for  the  work  of 
reform. 

Criminals  by  heredity  are  usually  hopeless — they  arc  rarely 
caught  young  enough.  Criminals  who  have  committed  one.  or 
at  most  a  few  crimes  under  the  stress  of  impulse,  necessity,  or 
temptation  and  example,  yet  have  no  criminal  ancestry,  wlio  have 


6i4  THE    DISEASES    OF    SOCIETY 

not  been  brought  up  in  the  slums,  and  have  a  fair  physique,  are 
always  reformable. 

It  has  been  said  that  there  is  an  ever-present  danger  of 
making  prison  life  too  attractive  to  individuals  who  prefer  jail 
support  to  honest  work.  To  this  I  would  answer,  first,  the  fact 
that  honest  industry  is  the  price  of  liberty  will  not  drive  anybody 
but  a  moral  imbecile  or  physical  incompetent  into  jail.  Such 
persons  belong  there,  and  should  be  kept  there  permanently. 
Liberty  is  sweet  to  all  others,  and  the  man  who  finds  that  life 
imprisonment,  and  not  a  limited  sojourn  in  prison,  stares  him 
in  the  face  is  not  likely  to  yearn  for  the  flesh-pots  of  the  most 
luxurious  jail.  If  he  does,  and  is  made  self-supporting  in  jail, 
there  can  be  no  great  harm  done  to  society.  Second,  with  the 
indeterminate  sentence  and  rigid  tests  of  eligibility  to  freedom, 
prison  surroundings  that  closely  resemble  those  of  people  in 
modest  circumstances  in  the  outside  world  will  scarcely  tempt  to 
crime.  Third,  in  order  to  inspire  a  man  with  the  ambition  to 
lead  a  decent,  orderly,  clean,  and  industrious  life,  it  is  necessary 
to  show  him  what  such  a  life  means  and  inculcate  a  taste  for  it. 

A  description  of  the  various  prison  and  reformatory  systems 
has  no  place  in  this  volume.  The  nearest  approach  to  the  ideal — 
Elmira  Reformatory,  already  briefly  described — will  serve  as  an 
illustration  of  the  general  plan  upon  which  reformation  should 
be  operated.  Modifications  and  improvements  will  doubtless 
suggest  themselves  as  criminology  develops.  Under  prevailing 
conditions,  such  institutions  as  do  not  combine  the  highest  ideals 
in  physical,  moral,  and  intellectual  training  in  the  management  of 
young  criminals  represent  the  vicious  system  which,  in  self- 
defence,  society  must  one  day  abolish.  Elmira,  on  the  other 
hand,  represents  the  general  plan  upon  which  crime  must  be 
combated  if  the  world  is  ever  to  accomplish  much  in  the  pre- 
vention and  cure  of  the  most  formidable  of  all  the  diseases  of 
society. 


INDEX 


Abortion,  367 

Abortionists,  newspaper  advertising  of,  367 
Absinthe,  drinking  of,  211 
Acquired  characteristics,  heredity  of,  74 
Age  of  consent  in  boys,  335,  416 
Alcohol,  relation  of  degeneracy  to,  200 
to  prostitution,  203,  329 

results  of,  198 
Alcoholic  insanity,  relation  of,  to  murder,  169 
Alcoholism  and  social  diseases,  195 

remedies  for,  211 

responsibility  of  society  for,  204 
Amalgamation  of  races,  125 
Ambition,  relation  of,  to  character,  74 
America,  criminal  type  in,  78 

increase  of  degeneracy  in,  36 

neuropathy  of,  36 
Anarchy,  general  consideration  of,  229 

in  Chicago,  235 

in  municipal  government,  270 

in  politics,  265 

in  the  name  of  order  and  social  revenge,  244 

of  capital  and  labor,  278 

of  governments,  256 

of  law,  21 

relation  of,  to  crime,  229 

therapeutics  of,  295 
Aram,  Eugene,  455 
Arrests,  number  of,  in  Chicago,  16 
Asexualization  in  the  prevention  of  social  disease,  562 
Assassin,  eyes  of,  489 
Atavism,  relation  of,  to  social  degeneracy,  ^^ 

to  social  diseases,  75 
Autotoxemia,  relation  of,  to  crime,  211 
to  insanity,  214 

remedies  for,  221 

615 


6i6  INDEX 

Bastardy,  367-372 

Benedikt,  M.,  the  criminal  brain,  182 

Bertillon  method  in  prevention  of  insurance  frauds,  138 

Biochemistry  of  crime,  212 

Blake,  William,  history  of,  471 

Blandford,  remarks  on  kleptomania,  175 

Boarding-schools,  dangers  of,  379-411 

Booth,  John  Wilkes,  251 

Brain,  avenues  for  development  of,  151 

development  of,  145 

localization,  153 

of  the  criminal,  145-181 

Cadet  system,  366 

Campbell,  A.,  insurance  frauds,  137 

Capital,  anarchy  of,  278 

Capital  punishment,  599 

Car-barn  bandits,  the,  542 

Carnot,  President,  murder  of,  255 

Carpet-bag  government,  relation  of,  to  negro  criminality,  123 

Castration,  treatment  of  crime  by,  562 

Causes  of  crime,  resume  of,  37 

Cavendish  Square,  scandal  of,  388 

Celibacy  and  crime,  138 

Cerebellum,  relation  of  diseases  of,  to  crime,  180 

Chemistry  of  social  diseases,  19S 

Cherry,  pictures  of  African  life,  425 

Chicago  bureau  of  identification  of  criminals,  16 

Chicago,  criminality  of,  15,  16 

increased  proportion  of  crime  in,  17 
Child  labor,  289 

relation  of,  to  crime,  98 
Chinese,  suicide  among,  194 
Chloral,  drugging  by,  210 
Christison,  J.  S.,  analysis  of  Czolgosz,  255 
Civilization,  dominant  lie  of,  259 
Class  distinction  in  crime,  59 
Classics,  obscenity  of,  343 
Clevenger,  S.  V.,  theory  of  sexual  affinity,  381 
Climacteric,  relation  of,  to  crime,  115 
Coal  strike,  290 
Cocaine,  action  of,  209 
Committee  of  Fifteen,  report  of,  408 
Compatibility,  matrimonial,  in  relation  to  prostitution,  349 


INDEX  617 


Conscience,  capacity  for  development  of,  48 

evolution  of,  42 

in  lower  animals,  50 

in  savages,  44 

social  form  of,  4, 
Constipation,  brain  disorder  from,  218 
Contagion  of  crime,  93 
Coquetry,  dangers  of,  414 
Corporations,  evils  of,  287 
Cost  of  crime,  15 

Counterfeiters,  illustrations  of,  549 
Crania  and  physiognomies  of  degenerates,  517 
Cranial  conformation,  159 

relation  of,  to  mind,  160 
Craniology,  160 

Crawford,  F.,  views  on  divorce,  354 
Crime,  definition  of,  81 

etiology  of,  80 

remedies  for,  556 

question,  profundity  of,  22 

varieties  of,  83 

wave  of,  22 
Criminal,  criminals : 

anthropology,  over-enthusiasm  in,  25 

brains,  pathology  of,  181 

classification  of,  84 

comparison  of,  with  normal  man,  478 

courage  of,  500 

emotional  stability  of,  502 

ethics  and  sentiment  of,  503 

families,  74 

illustrative  physiognomies  of,  517 

in  literature  and  art,  508 

intelligence  of,  496 

malingering  among.  509 

moral  sensibility  of,  498 

motor  activity  and  power  of,  490 

percentage  of  disease  among,  486 

physical  characteristics  of,  476-480 
sensibility  of,  491 

precocity  of,  493 

religion  of,  506 

skull,  159 

tattooing  among,  513 


6i8  INDEX 

Criminal,  criminals: 

types  of,  517 

vanity  of,  507 
Criminology,  lack  of  interest  in,  34 

object  of,  19 
Czolgosz,  253 

Dead-beatism  in  the  genius,  434 
Defective  physique  as  a  factor  in  social  disease,  93 
Defectives,  laboratory  study  of,  183 
Degeneracy,  biologic  effects  of,  88 

neuropathy  in,  86 

relation  of,  to  social  disease,  86 
Degenerates,  deformities  in,  88 
Department  store,  relation  of,  to  brothel,  326 
Diseases  of  sexual  organs,  relation  of,  to  sexual  perversion,  389 
Divorced,  children  of  the,  358 
Drugging  as  a  cause  of  inebriety,  210 

DuBois,  Prof.  W.  E.,  race  problem  as  a  factor  in  crime,  120 
Dugdale,  Richard,  history  of  the  Jukes,  71 
Dyspepsia,  relation  of,  to  crime,  219 

Early  marriages,  an  evil  of,  362 
Elmira  Reformatory,  609 
Emotional  insanity,  213 

relation  of,  to  crime,  166 

instability  in  criminals,  502 
Epidemic  crime  from  jealousy,  168 
Epilepsy,  relation  of,  to  autotoxemia,  213 

to  crime,  145 
Equality  of  man,  fallacy  of,  286 
Ethics,  improvement  of,  61 

of  criminals,  503 
Etiology  of  crime  in  general,  80 
Europe,  fixed  criminal  type  in,  78 
Evolution,  ancient  knowledge  of,  41 

importance  of,  41 

of  conscience,  morals  and  will  in,  42 

principles  of,  in  criminology,  41 
Expense  of  crime,  15 
Eyes,  lust  of  the,  382 

Familiarity,  evils  of,  in  matrimony,  354 

Families,  criminal,  74 

Family,  decadence  of  the  American,  359 


INDEX  619 


Family,  limitations  of,  361 
Fear,  relation  of,  to  conscience,  48 
Felton,  C.  E.,  insurance  frauds,  138 
Female,  change  in  moral  tone  of,  348 

criminals,  types  of,  549 

ignorance  of,  339 

physiology  of,  in  relation  to  prostitution,  317 

prisoners,  proportion  of,  142 

relative  purity  of,  323 
Fevers,  psychoses  in,  218 
Flesch,  the  criminal  brain,  181 
Forebrain,  importance  of,  148 

Foreign-born  population,  relation  of,  to  crime,  130 
Francis  Joseph  of  Austria,  attempt  on  life  of,  256 
Free  silver,  fallacy  of,  266 

will,  fallacy  of,  20 
Furor  epilepticus,  171-214 

Gall,  F.  J.,  work  in  cerebral  localization,  154 
Gambling,  relation  of,  to  crime,  134 
General  considerations  of  social  disease,  13 
Genius  and  degeneracy,  427 
in  the  female,  463 
in  the  insane,  464 
morbid  anatomy  of,  462 
physical  anomalies  of,  462 
relation  of  education  to,  449 

to  militarism  and  crime,  452 
tardy  development  of,  448 
the,  critical  faculty  of,  438 
heredity  of,  439 
loss  of  brain  balance  in,  43'' 
modesty  of,  436 
neuro-psychic  defects  of,  455 
precocity  of,  447 
value  of,  to  the  world,  427 
George  III.,  attempts  on  life  of,  255 
Germany,  militarism  of,  259 
Governments,  anarchy  of,  256 
Grippe,  influence  of,  in  crime,  23 
Guiteau,  Charles  J.,  251 

Haymarket  massacre,  235 
Head  of  the  typic  criminal,  162 


620  INDEX 

Heredity,  relation  of,  to  crime,  70 

to  social  evolution,  68 
Higher  education,  occasional  fallacy  of,  416 
Hollander,  B.,  remarks  on  criminal  heads,  162 

on  relation  of  brain  disease  to  pyromania  and  irascibility,  172 
Home,  the,  as  a  moral  inhibitor,  414 
Humbert,  King  of  Italy,  assassination  of,  256 
Hypoxanthin  in  autotoxemia,  219 
Hysteria,  relation  of,  to  crime,  145-184 

Ideals,  dangers  of,  412 

relation  of,  to  matrimony,  352 
Identification,  occasional  fallacy  of,  294 
Illegitimate  children,  duty  of  society  to,  371 

parentage,  367 
Illiteracy,  relation  of,  to  crime,  99 
Immigration,  evils  of,  129 
Indeterminate  sentence,  the,  604 
Indican,  relation  of,  to  autotoxemia,  220 
Industrial  conditions,  relation  of,  to  prostitution,  324 

problem,  relation  of,  to  crime,  118 
Inebriety  and  crime,  195 

cure  of,  221 

self-drugging  as  a  cause  of,  210 
Infallibility,  social  demand  for,  in  matrimony,  357 
Infanticide,  371 
Inhibitions,  seat  of,  152 
Inquisition,  the  Spanish,  592 
Insanity  and  religion,  471 

relation  of,  to  crime,  145-163 
Insurance  frauds,  136 
Intimacies,  evils  of,  in  young,  340,  4IC 
Intimidation  of  witnesses,  iii 

Jack  the  Ripper,  384 

Jealousy,  relation  of,  to  crime,  167 

Jolas,  ethics  of,  45 

Jukes,  history  of,  71 

Jury  system,  302 

substitute  for,  302 
Justice  shops,  evils  of,  292-294 

methods  of,  iii 
Juvenile  courts,  574 

management  and  reform,  573 


INDEX  621 

Kiernan,  J.  G.,  views  of  sexual  perversion,  378 

Kleptomania,  174 

KraflFt-Ebing,  views  of  sexual  perversion,  374-383 

Labor,  anarchy  of,  278 

attitude  towards  society,  283 
Laborer,  opportunity  of,  285 
Law,  anarchy  of,  291 

evolution  of,  68 

inequalities  of,  as  a  factor  in  crime,  no 

unjust  dispensation  of,  292 
Lawrence,  attempt  on  life  of  Jackson,  250 
Lawyers,  corporation,  289 
Le  Fevre,  Shaw,  effect  of  Boer  War  on  crime  and  pauperism  in  London, 

265 
Legal  machinery,  detective  and  corrupt,  relation  of,  to  crime,  107 
Legislation,  against  crime,  fallacy  of,  19 
Literature,  obscene,  relation  of,  to  vice,  342 

relation  of,  to  crime,  100 

supervision  of,  for  the  young,  409 
Lithemia,  phychoses  from,  216 
Liver,  relation  of  disorder  of,  to  crime,  218 
Lombroso,  C,  hysteria  and  crime,  186 
race  factor  in  crime,  24 
social  conservation  of  woman,  27 
views  of  genius,  437 
Lower  animals,  mentality  of,  52 

morals  and  conscience  in,  50 
Luchesi,  256 

Lynchings  in  America,  249 
Lynch  law  in  San  Francisco,  249 

MacDonald,  A.,  relation  of  genius  to  degeneracy,  430 

Mania  furiosa,  170 

Male,  polygamous  instincts  of,  320 

prostitution  in,  318 
Man's  inhumanity  to  man,  568 

Manual  and  industrial  training  as  a  remedy  for  crime,  585 
Marriages,  control  of,  557 

ill-assorted,  progeny  of,  355 
Matrimony,  compatibility  in,  350 

expense  of,  in  relation  to  prostitution.  327 

general  relations  of,  to  prostitution,  349 

relation  of,  to  crime,  138 


622  INDEX 

Maudsley,  H.,  head  of  typic  criminal,  162 
Melancholia,  relation  of,  to  suicide,  173 
Metabolism,  perverted,  relation  of,  to  crime,  210 
Militarism,  evils  of,  259 
Mind,  latent  faculties  of,  157 
Minneapolis,  graft  in,  272 
Mobs,  composition  of,  281 

psychology  of,  246 
Monopolies,  evils  of,  286 
Morality,  double  standard  of,  319 
Moral  standards,  variation  of,  57 

treatment  of  crime,  fallacy  of,  17 
Morals  of  lower  criminals,  50 

specific  gravity  of,  56 
Moreau  de  Tours,  biologic  effects  of  degeneracy,  88 
Municipal  anarchy,  270 

control,  301 
Murderers,  types  of,  546 
Myers,  "The  Prophet,"  252 
Myxedema,  psychoses  in,  215 

Napoleons  of  finance,  46 
Narcotic  inebriety,  remedies  for,  226 
Narcotics  and  crime,  195-206 
Negro,  furor  sexualis  in,  397 

indifference  to  death  of,  398 

lynchings  of,  245 

racial  peculiarities  of,  395 

rape  by,  393 

rapist,  treatment  of,  421 

relation  of  religious  fervor  in,  to  sexual  crimes,  397 

sadism  in,  397 

training  of,  128 

treatment  of,  by  whites,  396 
Neuroses,  relation  of,  to  social  disease,  145 
New  York,  increase  of  crime  in,  31 
Nordau,  M.,  views  of  degeneracy,  459 
Number  of  criminals,  15 
Nymphomania,  390 

relation  of,  to  prostitution,  316,  317,  365 

Office-holders,  price  of,  287 

Old  methods  of  study  of  crime,  fallacy  of,  17 

Opium,  relation  of,  to  crime,  206 


INDEX  623 


Pall  Mall  Gazette,  expose  by,  388 

Paupers,  number  of,  15 

Persecution,  delusions  of,  117 

Physical  training  in  the  prevention  and  cure  of  crime,  579 

Physician,  responsibility  of,  for  sexual  ignorance,  339 

Physiognomy  of  criminals,  486 

Platonic  love,  the  lie  of,  316 

Police,  blackmailing  of  prostitutes  by,  365 

corruption  of,  274 

methods  of,  11 1 

officials,  selection  of,  301 

persecution  by,  114 

relation  of,  to  prostitution,  365 
Political  anarchy,  265 

graft,  261 
Polygamous  instinct,  relation  of,  to  prostitution,  320 
Pontiac  Reformatory,  609 
Poor,  the,  improving  the  conditions  of,  569 
Practicality  of  the  crime  question,  15 
Precocity  of  criminals,  493 

of  genius,  447 
Press,  relation  of,  to  crime,  100 
Prison  officials,  611 
Procreative  function,  duration  of,  321 
Prostate,  irritation  of,  as  a  cause  of  sexual  vice,  365 
Prostatic  disease,  relation  of,  to  vice  and  crime,  216 
Prostitute,  attitude  of,  towards  her  occupation,  335 

fate  of,  362 
Prostitutes,  classification  of,  313 

number  of,  364 
Prostitution,  303 

definition  of,  311 

early  beginning  of.  .^28 

etiology  of,  315 

general  consideration  ot,  303 

increase  of,  in  Chicago,  308 

inspection  of,  406 

licensing  of,  406 

possible  benefits  of,  401 

prevention  of,  401 

regulation  of,  401 

relation  of,  to  degeneracy,  372 
to  disease,  365 
to  venereal  diseases,  310 


624-  INDEX 

Prostitution,  special  factors  in  the  etiology  of,  337 
Psychopathy  of  mobs,  246 
Punishment,  barbarities  of,  34 

inequalities  of,  115 

prevention  and  cure  of  crime  by,  591 

Race  amalgamation,  125 

problem,  relation  of,  to  crime,  119-393 
Rapists,  asexualization  of,  424 

treatment  of,  421 

types  of,  546 
Realism,  relation  of,  to  sexual  vice  and  crime,  342 
Reformation  of  criminals,  608 
Reich,  Jacob,  256 
Religion,  evolution  of,  66 

relation  of,  to  crime,  65 
to  social  evolution,  63 
Remedies  for  social  diseases,  556 
Renal  disease,  psychoses  from,  216 
Roncorini,  the  criminal  brain,  182 
Royce,  N.  K.,  heredity  of  genius,  441 

mystery  of  genius,  431 
Rulers,  deeds  of  violence  against,  250 
Rush,  Benjamin,  observations  of  the  insane,  470 
Sadism,  383 
Safety  of  crime,  105 
Santo,  Cesare,  255 
Satyriasis,  374-390 

relation  of,  to  prostitution,  365 
Savage,  conscience  of,  44 

effects  of  civilization  on,  45 
Saviour  of  lost  souls,  the,  385 

Schaack,  M.  J.,  account  of  Haymarket  Massacre,  240 
Schneider,  Marie,  precocious  criminality  of,  494 
Seasons,  influence  of,  22 
Seduction,  relation  of,  to  prostitution,  334 
Sex,  relation  of,  to  crime,  142 

standards  of,  318 
Sexual  affinity,  relation  of  hunger  to,  381 

education,  402 

duty  of  physician  in,  404 

perversion  and  inversion,  374 
heredity  in,  378 
relation  of  alcohol  to,  389 


INDEX  625 


Sexual  perversion,  relation  of  evolution  to,  377 
sexual  excess  to,  379 

perverts,  classification  of,  376 
colonization  of,  375 
portraits  of,  390 
types  of,  390 

vice  and  crime,  303 

treatment  of,  400 
in  history,  306 
Sexuality,  social  inhibitions  of,  58 
Skull,  increase  of  size  of,  with  advancing  civilization,  150 

of  the  criminal,  145 
Slum  factor  in  social  diseases,  96 
Social  conscience,  47 

disease,  defective  physique  in,  93 
special  causes  of,  91 

hysteria,  247 

necessities,  relation  of,  to  conscience,  44 

pathologist,  duty  of,  17 

pathology,  general  considerations  of,  13 

responsibility  in  crime,  28 

revenge,  244 
Society's  neglect  of  prospective  criminals,  30 

obligation  to  the  criminal,  29 
South,  frequency  of  rape  in,  398 
Southern  States,  anarchy  in,  267 
Speculation,  relation  of,  to  crime,  133 
Spitzka,  E.  C,  views  of  sexual  affinity,  382 
Sprague,  case  of,  388 
Stage,  relation  of,  to  crime,  100 

to  prostitution,  365 
Sterilization  in  the  prevention  of  social  disease,  562 
Stocks,  manipulation  of,  286 

Strenuosity  in  America  as  a  cause  of  degeneracy,  189 
Suggestion,  relation  of,  to  crime,  100 
Suicide,  grippe  as  a  cause  of,  23 

increase  of,  188 

special  race  factor  in,  190 
Suicides,  classification  of,  191 
Superfluous  woman,  the,  323-417 
Surgical  procedures,  results  on  biochemistry,  215 
Susceptibility  to  alcohol,  197 
Swedenborg,  Emanuel,  471 
Swift,  Dean,  obscenity  of  works  of,  344 

40 


626  INDEX 

Tardieu,  remarks  on  pederasty,  387 
Theology,  evolution  of,  68 

relation  of,  to  social  progress,  63 
Therapeutics  of  anarchy,  295 

of  social  disease,  556 
Thieves,  types  of,  548 

Toxemia,  relations  of,  to  social  diseases,  195 
Trusts,  evils  of,  286 

United  States,  inconsistency  of,  262 

Vanity  in  criminals,  507 

Venereal  prophylaxis,  404 

Vice,  definition  of,  83 

Vicious  training,  relation  of,  to  prostitution,  330 

Vigilance  committee,  249 

Violence  against  rulers,  250 

Virgins,  prescription  of,  339 

War,  evils  of,  263 

relation  of,  to  crime,  vice,  and  pauperism,  264 
Wassilyi,  Nicholas,  385 
Weapons,  suggestion  by,  170 
Wharton,  case  of  sexual  perversion,  389 
Wild  oats,  evils  of,  332 

the  lie  of  the,  330 
Will,  development  of,  49 
Wines,  F.  H.,  vievv's  of  castration,  564 
Witnesses,  bullying  and  intimidation  of,  ill 
Woman  and  crime,  142 

influence  upon  her  sex  as  a  factor  in  prostitution,  340 

petty  thievery  by,  177 

rights  of,  360 

weakness  of  will  of,  49 
Working  girls,  homes  for,  419 

Yellow  journalism,  relation  of,  to  sexual  vice,  344 
Youth,  prejudice  of,  against  manual  labor,  327 

Xanthan  group  in  autotoxemia,  219 


THE    END 


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I^dston,  George  Frank 
Diseases  of  society,. • 


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